Speculative developers, you’ve gotta love ‘em.

It would appear that the gold rush to provide lucrative yet uncalled-for student housing is truly on, before Cornwall makes its planning rules enforceable.

We’re now in the sad situation where a treasured local business is having to throw its weight behind one large brown field development with no parking, simply to save itself from the threat of a similar project.

Granite Planet has provided locals - and the university’s own climbing club -with a valuable resource for years, but now it is threatened with closure by landowners looking for a buck, while student developers

Irregular are offering space at their new gaff, as long they help swing planning consent.

I wholeheartedly hope things work out for the climbing crew; it’s terrible, if apt, they’re having to grasp at any line they’re thrown. What if their site gets built on but their future home never materialises? Conversely if all speculative sites get built there will be more accommodation than students, and no business or farmland left.

What we need is for Cornwall Council and the universities to really put their heads together, no bluster, and hash out exactly what is needed and where - no developer input. Top-down planning not market-led, money grabbing building.

With space for a climbing wall, of course.