12 years on: still no Plymouth streets named after fallen heroes

At the recent city council meeting [15 September], Plymouth Liberal Democrat councillor Dylan Tippetts called out Labour's failure to honour Plymouth's fallen service personnel through naming city streets in their honour - despite a public pledge made more than a decade ago by Labour councillor Chris Penberthy to help make that happen.

At last week's city council meeting, Cllr Penberthy rejected Cllr Tippetts' suggestion that the council should waive the £216 fee it charges developers when they name a new street, if the developers name a street after a fallen veteran.

In November 2013, Cllr Chris Penberthy announced new rules allowing streets to be named after Armed Forces members with a strong connection to Plymouth who had died in service since 1914. At the time, he said: "There can be no men or women more deserving of this honour than those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country."

Yet, according to the council's own records, not a single one of the 170 new streets named since 2013 has commemorated a fallen veteran.

Instead, the 170 new streets include:

* 28 named after quarries

* Three named after villages in the Lake District

* One after the last aircraft to make an emergency landing at Plymouth Airport.

Of the 1,381 suggestions on the council's list of suggested street names, available to developers who want a little help in picking names (and obtained by Plymouth Liberal Democrats using the Freedom of Information Act), just two honour fallen service personnel - and neither has been used.

Cllr Tippetts said: "I'm really disappointed that Cllr Penberthy completely dismissed a simple way to encourage developers to honour our fallen veterans. If he is that committed to making developers pay to name new streets, will he at least pledge to donate the money to a local veterans' charity?

"The Labour council needs to do far more to encourage local people to propose names. Cllr Penberthy should also look into whether we can, in particular, name streets after the four Plymouth men who won the Victoria Cross in the First World War. The council knows who they are, because there is a page on the council website all about them.”

Cllr Tippetts concluded: "Honouring veterans is more than just words. It's fine for Cllr Penberthy to get a story in the media when he made his commitment back in 2013 to honour fallen military personnel, but 12 years later not one street honours a fallen veteran. Labour have to do something if they want to make this a reality."