Year on year food prices have continued to fall, with a 2% fall over the last 12 months, according to the most recent official Consumer Prices Index (CPI) figures released on 13 December. General inflation is 1.2 per cent, up from 0.9 per cent in October. Food prices rose by 0.4% in the month to November 2016. However, overall, food prices have fallen by 7% since their peak in February 2014.

Commodity prices, exchange rates and oil prices are known to be the most important drivers of retail food price inflation.

This Government is committed to tackling poverty and disadvantage and to delivering real social reform, and we believe that economic growth and employment offer the best route to give people a better future. Household spend on food by households with the lowest 20% income is included in the Living Cost of Food Survey (LCFS) and has remained constant at around 16.5% for a number of years. The Government helps the most vulnerable afford and have access to nutritious food though initiatives such as the Healthy Start scheme and Free School Meals, and through the welfare system.

My term of office as your Cornwall Councillor nearly up as there will be elections to Cornwall Council on May 4th. No official list of candidates seeking election has been finalised, but many of the political parties have named their candidate to fight this election.

This blog post is officially confirming my intent to stand and seek re-election as an Independent to the electoral division of Porthleven and Helston West at the May election.  I hope residents will consider me for a further term of office.

As part of the review of animal establishment licensing schemes, the Government is proposing to remove the licence exemptions in the Pet Animals Act 1951. These exemptions are for those in the business of selling either pedigree animals that have been bred by them or the offspring of an animal that has been kept by them as a pet, for instance, the offspring of their non-pedigree pet cat. We will be publishing our ‘Next Steps’ document on the proposals shortly.

We received the letter to which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West refers on 22 December, and you can expect a reply imminently.

Just before Christmas the Government made an announcement that it had created a fund to help those areas will a high number of second-homes. The funding is allocated between local authorities proportionate to the number of holiday homes in the local area and taking account of the affordability of housing to local people.The amount of money available nationally is £60m. From this pot, Cornwall Council will receive £5,117,980.

Whilst I welcome this money, it is not really going to deal with the issue of second-homes. I long campaigned for any second-home or holiday-let to require planning permission before it could change from full-time occupation. In this campaign, I submitted a Motion to Cornwall Council which was fully supported to ask the Government to change the planning rules. Details of that Motion can be found HERE. Yet the Government dismissed the Council’s Motion and letter (blogs on second-homes HERE).

How can the £5m allocated to Cornwall Council be spent? In essence, the fund will enable local community groups deliver affordable housing units of mixed tenure on sites which are likely to be of little interest to mainstream house-builders. Being honest, getting developers to build is not a problem, the problem is what happens to those open market dwellings after they are built.

Furthermore, in the Governments own words, this funding will “contribute to the overall national effort to boost housing supply.”

From the Government’s message, it seems to tackle second-homes is to build more housing. This will not solve the problem. The problem can be mitigated against if there was a change to planning legislation. For instance, you cannot change a business unit into a home without planning permission. The same rule should apply for both second-homes and holiday-lets.

It is that time of the year when people ask: will there be any changes to my weekly and fortnightly rubbish/recycling collections? The good news is unless your collection for either rubbish, clinical waste, recycling or garden waste collections falls on Boxing Day, then there will be no change to your collection. As Boxing Day (Monday 26 December) is the only collection day that is affected over Christmas and New Year.

Now if your collection would have been on Boxing Day, then your rubbish and clinical waste due to be collected on Boxing Day will be collected on Monday 2nd January. If your recycling or garden waste collection waste is due on Boxing Day (Monday 26 December) it will be collected on Saturday 31st December .

Monday 26 December No collection

Next collection on Monday 2 January. No collection

Next collection on Saturday 31 December

For anyone wanting to use the Household Waste and Recycling Centres, these will be closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. The people at these centres need a day off too!

The Council will still collection you Christmas Tree for free, and yes it only applies to Christmas trees. This free collection will start from the 9th January and 16th January.  All you have to do is put your tree out on your normal rubbish collection day on the alternate week to your recycling collection. The trees will be collected and then shredded and composted. You can also take your tree to the Household Waste and Recycling Centres.

The following items can be recycled in the following ways:

• Christmas cards – There are various charity collections for Christmas cards.  You can also put them in your cardboard bag as part of your household recycling collection.
• Envelopes – Envelopes can go in your household recycling collection.  White envelopes should go into the bag for paper, coloured or brown envelopes should go with the cardboard.
• Wrapping paper – We can take wrapping paper that isn’t coated with foil or plastic.  Please put all non-shiny wrapping paper in bag for paper, and remove any sticky tape, string or ribbons.
• Cardboard – Over Christmas there are a lot of extra cardboard boxes. Flatten the boxes and put them in the orange cardboard recycling bag. If the boxes are too big, flat pack them, tie them in a bundle and put them out next to your recycling. If you have very large amounts of cardboard, you can either take it to your local Household Waste and Recycling Centres or put it out for the kerbside collection over a couple of weeks.
• Tin Foil – Put scrunched up tin foil into the sack for plastic bottles and cans.
• Sweet and biscuit tins – You can put chocolate and biscuit tins out for recycling in the sack for plastic bottles and tins. We can only accept metal sweet and biscuit tins at this time. We cannot take the plastic tubs. (Unless you are in the pots tubs and trays trial)

If you have more kerbside recycling than usual, please put it out in carrier bags.  Glass bottles and jars must be put in a rigid box.

Merry Christmas and keep recycling!!