Badgers and bike trails are among the issues to be discussed at the first full meeting of Cornwall Council in 2020.

Councillors are due to meet in the council chamber at County Hall tomorrow.

They will be asked to consider the latest report on the Saints Multi-User Trails which will provide a network of four new paths linking Newquay, Perranporth, St Agnes and Truro.

And the council will be asked to support a recommendation from Cabinet that the project be added to the council’s capital programme with £17 million being provided by Highways England and £2m in match funding from the council.

The report, which previously went to Cabinet, states: “Once completed, this 30km network of trails will link housing and employment growth areas connect coastal communities, provide sustainable access to key services and help address congestion and air quality issues. The new trails will benefit both commuters and leisure users, extending the tourism offer for central Cornwall and provide future job creation opportunities, along with transformation of local towns and villages similar to that experienced with the Camel and Bissoe trails.”

The four routes are – Perranporth to Newquay, St Newlyn East to Carland Cross, Trispen to Idless and Truro to St Agnes.

Tomorrow’s council meeting will also see a motion being tabled calling for the council to roll out vaccination for badgers on the council’s county farms estate.

Councillor Sue James will propose the motion which has been seconded by Mike Thomas and has support from three other councillors.

It recommends that the council works with partners, including the National Trust and Cornwall Wildlife Trust, to aim to eradicate TB within six years by vaccinating badgers on council-owned and managed land.

The motion states: “Whilst the causes and route to eradicating Bovine TB is controversial, vaccinating badgers against the disease can eliminate them from being transmitters leaving farmers to focus on improving biosecurity and testing standards to reduce transmission within and between cattle herds.”

Another motion going before the meeting concerns planning enforcement and a call for greater transparency over how the council carries out enforcement.

Councillor Mark Formosa has tabled the motion due to concerns that the council is no longer making details of planning enforcement action public due to concerns over data protection.

It states: “The motion is being submitted because the enforcement of planning decisions and any attached conditions is vitally important for the integrity of the planning process and to avoid such decisions being undermined, yet, while the planning application process itself is fully open to public scrutiny, thereby deterring iniquitous conduct, the enforcement of

decisions and conditions is a process which takes place behind a GDPR-inspired smokescreen which denies the public and most elected members any meaningful opportunity to follow it and/or to assess its fairness.”

The motion calls for a working group to be established to look at how the system can be more open and transparent.

Tomorrow’s full council meeting will also consider a performance report and an update on the council’s capital programme and a recommendation to reduce it by £634,000.

The full council meeting is due to take place tomorrow (Tuesday, January 21) at 10.30am. It will be webcast from the council’s website.