This is another ‘quickie’, which I’m putting out partly so people can be aware of what might be in the pipeline, and also to see if anyone out there can add a little meat to the bones.
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WHERE WE AT?
As is my wont, I’ll start by showing you the area in question. It’s some two or three miles south or south west of Caban-coch reservoir. Or six or seven miles north of Llanwrtyd.
To give you a better idea of the area I’m talking about, Bryn Rhudd is pinned on both maps reproduced below.
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Bute Energy, the ‘renewables’ arm of property company Parabola, has an ‘Energy Park’ planned here. For which the registered company was known as Bryn Glas Energy Park Ltd, until Wednesday, when it changed to Bryn Rhudd Energy Park Ltd.
Which doesn’t move the project very far in terms of distance, Bryn Glas and Bryn Rhudd being adjacent hills, but I find the change significant because it suggests things might now be moving with this previously quiescent entity.
Confirmation for the project comes from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales. This map produced last year shows Bryn Glas as a proposal.
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That said, the project does not appear on the Bute Energy website. But there are a number of Bute projects – companies formed and registered with Companies House – that don’t appear on the Bute website.
Maybe no progress has been made on these ten projects beyond general scoping and informal chats with landowners.
In addition, there are a number of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) for which companies have been formed. Six by my count.
And let’s not forget the pylons and the power lines. Mile after mile of them, to carry the electricity generated (when the wind is just right!) from remote Welsh locations to the consumers of that electricity in England.
As many of you know, I try to keep up with Bute’s activities, and here’s my updated factsheet. If anyone can add to, or correct it, don’t be shy about contributing.
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WHAT MORE CAN I TELL YOU?
A big question in all these projects, and indeed, other projects, is – who owns the land, who stands to gain? A question that’s not easy to answer.
In the case of Bryn Rhudd, my first port of call was the Land Registry, but seeing as I had no title number I had to rely on finding it on the LR map. Which I think worked.
Here’s the title document for the land I located on the LR map. It’s known as Abergwesyn Commons. You’ll see it’s owned by the National Trust (NT); which seems to be confirmed by this map I found on the NT website. (Best of luck with the filters!)
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The NT land is the area in blue. I’ve highlighted Abergwesyn, to the south of the area that takes its name. To get your bearings relative to the maps you saw earlier use the reservoirs shown above the area in blue.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a title plan available to download, as it was too large, and I didn’t have time to get it delivered by post.
Abergwesyn Commons stretch for 12 miles between the Nant Irfon valley in the west and Llanwrthwl in the east. Drygarn Fawr is the highest point on the commons, lying above the Nant Irfon valley.
Which appears to confirm this is the area we’re concerned with, and that Bute’s planned Bryn Rhudd Energy Park is on National Trust land.
Land Registry title documents can be intriguing when they provide a bit of history, which is the case with the one we’re looking at. In the recent history of the area we see names we’ve encountered before. And of course, they’re double-barrelled names.
First, there’s Legge-Bourke. I believe the land we’re looking at was sold to the National Trust by the Legge-Bourke family.
Whereas the Right Honourable James David Lord Gibson-Watt of the Wye M.C., P.C., and son, Julian Gibson Watt, were granted “sporting rights” over part of the land for 99 years from September 1984.
Other names mentioned were those you see below.
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Though it seems that somewhere along the way Devoy became Devoy-Williams. (An attempt to go native?) And Dai is a man of the law, as this report tells us.
I’m not sure whether he and Anjana are still an item, and maybe she runs the company Chillderness herself, or whether they’ve split. Either way, the Chillderness website explains the entry on the title document. (Chill in the wilderness – geddit!)
You’ll see from the website the company has a number of properties in Wales.
Hidden away in remote corners of the Chillderness Red Kite Estate in the Cambrian Mountains, Mid Wales, are four super-cool, off-grid glamping pods. The two Conkers (Earth Conker and Moon Conker) are insulated, all year round glamping pods. The forest by the river enfolds the two Tree Tents (Dragon’s Egg and Ynys Affalon), suspended in the canopy with treetop kitchens and outdoor bathing.
If you think ‘Affalon’ and the others are toe-curlers, wait until you see the properties in Sir Benfro. We have a nod to the Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive with ‘Llareggub’ in Saundersfoot, then there’s ‘Mor (sic) and More’ in Amroth.
This is the kind of tourism that too often passes for Welsh: Buy out the natives then make money from trivialising their identity and culture.
But perhaps of more relevance to this inquiry might be what we see under the heading Property Register, which deals with parts of the original title that have been detached over the years.
For there, at No 7, we see that land was detached in September 2019 from the NT Abergwesyn Commons land, which might link to the planned wind farm. But this reference gives no new title number to check, which is frustrating.
Given what we know, I’ll conclude this section by saying it’s reasonable to assume that Bute Energy has some agreement in place with the National Trust for the area around Bryn Rhudd.
Otherwise, why launch the company, and keep it alive?
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FINAL THOUGHTS
I always opposed the National Trust in Wales because it struck me as an ineffably English organisation, run by Home Counties hearties who would never understand or empathise with our history and identity.
Maybe devolution could have brought a change, if only arguing that the NT in Wales distanced itself from the parent body. But Corruption Bay was too busy anguishing over whether Picton should be disinterred and hung for what he might have done in the West Indies in the 18th century to worry about Wales in the 21st century.
More recently at the National Trust, tweeds and brogues gave way to green hair and anti-white racism. Predictably, this Wokist takeover brought in blind belief in the climate scam. Now we read of ‘Renewable energy in Wales‘, and just about every form of ‘renewables’ is mentioned . . . other than wind.
So I suggest we need a little honesty. A commodity rare in modern Wales. First from the National Trust.
On the assumption you own this land, do you have an agreement or an understanding with Bute Energy for a wind farm, or ‘Energy Park’, at Bryn Rhudd?
If so, have those who graze the land been informed or consulted?
To Bute Energy: What are your plans for Bryn Rhudd (formerly Bryn Glas)?
Also, what are your plans for the other 10 projects, each of which has a named company, but are not mentioned on your website? What stage have these projects reached?
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These uplands of Elenydd are unspoilt and beautiful, among the wildest parts of Wales. That’s because they’re remote, which of course means no decent road access. Look again at the map for Bryn Rhudd to see what I mean.
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Most of the area is only traversable on foot, by horse, or by quad bike. Which means that the environmental damage caused in transporting and erecting huge wind turbines would outweigh any possible gain from a decade or two of expensive, intermittent, and unreliable wind power.
Consequently, any plan for ‘renewables’ at Bryn Rhudd is a reminder that wind turbines, fields of solar panels, are all about making money. Nothing to do with the environment whatsoever.
This ‘quickie’ is in response to a news item about 200m tall wind turbines planned for Mynydd Fforch-dwm, near the village of Tonmawr, east of Neath. Permission has been granted by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ on the grounds that it’s a Development of National Significance.
The bulk of this post will be taken up with a look into the labyrinthine ownership of the company said to be behind this project, and others, before concluding with more general thoughts on ‘renewables’ in Wales.
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THE PROJECT
First, let’s give you an idea of the where we’re at. As I’ve said, it’s to the east of Neath, and in the map below I’ve circled Mynydd Fforch-dwm in red.
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The additional run-off of rainwater generated by the huge concrete turbine foundations, the cable trenches, the access roads and all the other work, will run into Nant Pelenna, which joins the Afan near Pontrhydyfen, and then flows on down to Port Talbot.
It’s an area already cursed by many turbines, with even more planned. Such as the proposal to erect even taller turbinesjust a few miles away at Y Bryn.
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Though it’s not just the six huge wind turbines that are being promised, for this ‘energy park’ will bring even more goodies:
As well as the six large turbines . . . the site could also contain up to 10 hectares of solar photovoltaic panels mounted on frames fixed to the ground along with associated infrastructure such as battery storage facilities, electricity transformers, and access works.
The company named in the article as being behind the project is Naturalis Energy. Here’s their elementary website. Naturalis describes itself as a joint venture between Renantis and REG Windpower Ltd.
Companies House shows a Naturalis Energy Ltd based in Telford, Shropshire. But I’m taking a punt on the company we’re looking for being Naturalis Energy Developments Ltd, formed 23 September, 2019, as the timing fits with the website dated 2020.
The same trio controls Vector Renewables UK Ltd at the same London address as Naturalis Energy Developments. Vector is owned by an outfit in the Caymans.
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These three may control other companies, but they can’t be traced in a Companies House search because they aren’t listed as directors, only as ‘Persons with significant control’.
From what I can see, the expertise in ‘renewables’ for Mynydd Fforch-dwm will be supplied by REG, with the money coming from Naturalis-Renantis. So I’m going to concentrate on the second element, the funding.
But before leaving REG . . . It was a tortuous trail but I eventually established that it’s all owned by Andrew Nicholas Whalley. Who’s been involved with many companies. Quite a few with Welsh names.
Back to Renantis UK Ltd, and the latest accounts filed with Companies House (to Dec 31, 2023) which tell us who owns this company. And whaddya know! – we’re back to the Cayman Islands, and the wording is the same as we just read for Vector.
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Now it gets a little complicated, so let’s hope I can explain it.
Which started to make sense, and ring bells. For Falck’s been mentioned on this blog before. Back in February 2022 in ‘Bute Energy Selling Wales For Danegeld?
To explain . . . Learning of the link-up between Scottish company Parabola Bute Energy (planning some 20 ‘renewables’ projects in Wales) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, I went to the CIP website looking for a reference to Parabola Bute.
I couldn’t find one, but I told readers back then what I did find.
‘Copenhagen Infrastructure 1 has invested GBP ~155m of equity for a 49% stake in Falck Renewables S.p.A.’s (Falck) operational onshore wind portfolio in Scotland and Wales.’
That was written in February 2022, the month Falck was taken over by the ‘investors’ advised by JP Morgan Chase. Whose CEO, Jamie Dimon, wants to compulsorily purchase land and property – to accommodate the wind turbines and the solar panels needed to save the planet!
Wind farms and solar arrays that – by pure chance! – will be owned by companies, hedge funds, corporations, and other entities run by men like Jamie Dimon.
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If this dangerous nonsense had come from the studded tongue of a green-haired newt-botherer, or even a TV envirogrifter, I might laugh it off. But as the headline reminds us, Dimon is a ‘Wall Street titan’.
When I first read that I thought it was the most frightening – yet revealing – example of the Globalist corporate mentality I had ever read. And I still think that.
Maybe I should explain at this point that Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners acts as an intermediary, finding environmentally acceptable investments for investors.
CIP manages 12 funds and has to date raised approximately EUR 30 billion for investments in energy and associated infrastructure from more than 180 international institutional investors.
Getting back to Falck . . . I’d come across the company even before the CIP connection. For Falck owns (owned?) 20-year-old, 39-turbine Cefn Croes Wind Farm, above the A44. In its day, said to be the biggest (by output) in the UK.
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Let’s go back to the complicated ownership details on the Renantis UK accounts. Where we read: ‘The ultimate parent company and controlling party at 31 December 2023 is IIF Int’l Holding LP, a company Incorporated in Cayman Islands‘.
A bit more searching told me that ‘IIF’ stands for International Investment Fund, which makes sense. An entity that was handling $24 billion two years ago. But it seems not everybody’s happy.
The key to knowing who’s behind the Mynydd Fforch-dwm project seems to lie in Milan. Where, in February 2022, local company Falck was taken over by ‘investors’ advised by JP Morgan Chase, using the Renantis-Naturalis label, and further obscuring their activities by operating from the Cayman Islands. It was reported at the same time that Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners had taken out a 49% shareholding in Falck’s Welsh and Scottish onshore operations.
But these entities only invest other people’s money, we still don’t know where the money for Mynydd Fforch-dwm originates. Do those clowns in Corruption Bay even care?
UPDATE: Soon after putting this piece out I was contacted by a good source with further information. In the summer of 2023 Renantis linked up with Ventient Energy, and then last year, this resulted in a new company, Nadara.
Nadara is registered in Scotland using an Edinburgh address. It brands itself as a Scottish company, even claiming its name is derived from Scottish Gaelic, though it’s owned by an outfit registered in the EU tax haven of Luxembourg in November 2023.
A name associated with LuxBlue Holdco SARL is that of Paul Farmer. He’s also involved with IIF Int’l Holding, of the Caymans, which we encountered earlier. His Linkedin profile says he’s some kind of freelance.
This may account for the clamour from politicians in Wales for the Crown Estate to be devolved here too, if only to show we’re getting some benefit from ‘renewables’.
I have no doubt that, once again, the trail leads back to the Cayman Islands. And so the question remains – where’s the money coming from?
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FINAL THOUGHTS (SOME RATHER PERTURBING)
When I began looking into Mynydd Fforch-dwm Energy Park I thought, from the name ‘Naturalis’, that I’d be seeing previously unknown companies, and fresh faces.
Boy! was I wrong.
Not only have we re-acquainted ourselves with loveable Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, through part of his empire operating out of a British Overseas Territory, but via the Italian connection we also bump into Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners again.
A good time to remember that a 25% stake in CIP is held by Danish turbine producer Vestas. Among Vestas directors and shareholders is former Danish PM (sometime MEP) Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Who’s married to Aberafan MP Stephen Kinnock.
(Thorning-Schmidt is also a director of the Islamic Development Bank and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.)
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By a remarkable coincidence, the planet-saving extravaganza planned for Mynydd Fforch-dwm is either in, or on the border of, the Aberafan constituency.
But even without that propinquity we can guarantee moolah from Mynydd Fforch-dwm making its way to Helle. (But will she share it with hubby?)
And of course that also applies to CIP’s involvement with Parabola Bute Energy.
As stated at the top, this project is justified by the ‘Welsh Government’ on the grounds that it’s a Development of National Significance. For which nation? We already produce more than enough electricity to meet Wales’s needs, so this project must be of national significance for England.
So where are the benefits to Wales?
We scar our hills, increase the risk of flooding, with foreign-built turbines and pylons owned by companies and ‘investors’ from God knows where that regularly catch fire or get blown over. They’re erected by crews brought in for the job, after which the only work is changing the oil, firing up the diesel generator to pretend the bloody things work, and collecting the dead birds and bats.
In real world terms wind turbines just mean higher electricity bills for everybody and falling property values for homes within sight and sound of the damn things.
There are no benefits to Wales whatsoever, apart from the pitiful ‘community funds’ . . . the green energy equivalent of beads and infected blankets.
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As I wrote this, and saw so many links emerge, I wondered if it’s an attempt to forge a ‘renewables’ monopoly in Wales. For Jamie Dimon would get red carpet treatment if he visited Cardiff, as most Senedd Members would gleefully implement his demand to compulsorily purchase farmland for yet more turbines.
If you keep up with Welsh news then you must be aware of the years-long confrontation on Ynys Môn over the plan for ‘lodges’ at Penrhos nature reserve on Holy Island.
This project was originally marketed as accommodation for workers coming to build Wylfa 2, the planned nuclear power station. But now it’s tourism, pure and simple.
Let’s start with the seller, Land & Lakes. This is quite a big company, based in the Lake District, and run by Brian Kenneth Scowcroft. He seems to be the real deal, a genuine entrepreneur. Perhaps Land & Lakes has decided to move on, and may even need the money from the sale for other purposes.
There are many companies under this name registered with Companies House, but none going back further than 2019. (And the older companies changed their name to Seventy Ninth.) The company with the flashy website we just looked at, the Seventy Ninth Group Ltd, was only launched in November 2024.
Though to confuse matters, there is also The 79th GRP Ltd registered with Companies House in July 2020. And despite the similar name, and the same Southport address, it is a different company.
This 79th GRP looks like an intra-group money shuffler, with no employees and the latest accounts showing Assets (debtors and cash) of £22,465,034 against Creditors of £22,465,686. With most of the latter accounted for by “amounts owed to group undertakings“.
Which may link with a deal done in Gibraltar at the end of 2023, by which (if I’m reading it right) tens of millions of Euros was made available to 79th GRP Ltd by 79th Resources Ltd, a Gibraltar-registered company formed in October 2010. (Though it might have been known by a different name.)
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What I find odd is that the charge document, drawn up by T & T Management Services of 2 Irish Town, Gibraltar, says “The 79th GRP Limited being a private limited company incorporated and registered in Gibraltar (under registration number 12783409)”, but then it gives the Southport address.
That number is for the Companies House registration; if it was registered in Gibraltar it would have a different number. And if also registered in the UK then I would expect to see a number beginning either with OC (Overseas Company), or OE (Overseas Entity).
Whatever, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by the Gibraltar connection, because if we go back to the website we looked at earlier we find this:
The fund is designed to capitalise on acquiring distressed and undervalued assets across various real estate sectors, including residential, commercial, and leisure, areas in which The Seventy Ninth Group has gained a global reputation as experts.
So we have companies registered in England, but working through Gibraltar and regulated in that tax haven. The Seventy Ninth Group is even listed on the Wiener Börse, and I recall reading somewhere else about the Frankfurt Exchange.
All very impressive; so how many companies are we talking about?
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THE EMPIRE
Earlier, I provided a link to a number of companies under the Seventy Ninth banner. Here it is again. But if you search the Companies house website under the name of CEO David Gary Webster, you turn up this list. Most use the ’79th’ label, with the oldest taking us back to May 2016.
Most of these companies are carrying debts, especially the older ones, such as 79th Luxury Living Five Ltd, and many seem to be owed to Castle Trust & Management Services Ltd. Another Gibraltar entity, now down the Swannee.
It looks very much as if Castle was badly investing money after people took advice from unregulated advisers. How much of this money ended up with the Websters and their Seventy Ninth / 79th duo?
UPDATE 25,02.2025: Read this insolvency report to better appreciate what a crook Knight is.
Elsewhere in the empire, the Seventy Ninth Global website is good for a laugh. Check out the image below. They look like a team of bouncers. What’s the message here? “Oi, let us invest your pension – or else!”
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But I digress.
With the demise of Castle Trust & Management Services the Websters seem to have teamed up with Desiman 2 Ltd for more recent loans. Including a loan made just before Christmas to cover the purchase of Penrhos and a number of what I assume to be adjacent properties, all listed here with their Land Registry title numbers.
The Bristol-based company accepted a deal in August worth GBP5.44 billion from a consortium comprising CVC private equity funds, Nordic Capital XI Delta and Platinum Ivy B 2018 RSC Ltd, part of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
This dig into background could end here, but it doesn’t, due to a frustrating quirk of the Companies House website. By which I mean, you can search, at different times, perhaps using other combinations of a name – even the same name! – and come up with entirely different results.
Like I say, it’s very bloody frustrating.
UPDATE: To add to the confusion I have found two companies registered with Companies House where Webster Snr gives his name as ‘David Webster’.
These are: long defunct T Orange Ltd, a one-man band. And Grudge Match Management Ltd, where the other director is Kenneth Roberts, who may have mining interests. Until February ’24 this company was known as 79th Group Ltd!
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BACKGROUND
As an example of the confusion, I mentioned earlier that searching on the Companies House website for ‘David Gary Webster’ turned up these 23 companies.
But another search for ‘David Gary Webster’ turned up 55 more companies. A different 55 companies! All of which seem to pre-date 79th / Seventy Ninth. With appointments running from January 2001 to May 2015. And in a number of the earlier posts, Webster is listed as secretary rather than director.
What’s more, many of them seem to be local sports clubs in Formby. Not surprising as in a number of these ventures Webster was teamed up with former lower leagues footballer Hugh McAuley.
The company mentioned, that linked McAuley with Webster, Innovation Group (UK) Ltd, was Dissolved in 2015, and never declared any assets of note.
A fate that accounts for most of the 55 companies I turned up in the second search, the exceptions being those Webster left over a decade ago, and 79th Element Ltd. Webster senior left this outfit in October 2016 and son Jake left in January 2020.
Though Jake is still listed as the controlling interest in this company, which seems to be the first mention of ’79th’. But what does it mean? (Since publication I’ve been reminded that gold has the atomic number 79.)
It’s all a bit odd, don’t you think? Here we have David Webster, Merseyside footy fan who, in his early 50s relaunches himself as a big-money property and finance guy with the loot behind it all coming from, or through, offshore locales.
Having built up, over 25 years, a £400 million residential and commercial property portfolio through The 79th Group, the Websters believe this is the perfect time to invest in gold and two further mine purchases are under consideration.
“Over 25 years”! But as I just said, the first mention I can find of 79th is in July 2014 with 79th Element Ltd, currently on the rocks, with the accounts well overdue, and strike-off imminent.
Though it does describe itself as being involved in “Mining and other non-ferrous metal ores”. But there’s surely a word missing after mining? Gold?
And we read earlier that Seventy Ninth now has mining concessions in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Also in Ontario, Canada. Though strictly speaking this is Seventy Ninth Resources, registered in Gibraltar (104802), but using the Southport address, and it’s a division of the bigger Seventy Ninth Group.
(You’ll recall me mention a deal between 79th GRP and 79th Resources. Is 79th Resources the same company as Seventy Ninth Resources?)
The Seventy Ninth Resources website says the actual drilling was done by SRK Exploration Services Ltd. But the only extant company with a name like that is SRK Exploration Services Nominee Company Ltd, giving a Newport, Gwent, address.
This is impressive stuff. If you accept it at face value. But I don’t.
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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The Websters work for the Seventy Ninth Group. But they don’t own it. They’ve been recruited to serve as the public face for a much bigger, and more secretive, network. The office in Southport is just an accommodation address.
Turning to Penrhos, we saw the relevant titles linked with DJC Leisure Ltd, the company named after Webster father and sons.
You’ll recall me wondering earlier why the ‘person of significant control’, indicating company ownership, had been left blank. Well now I know.
I went to the Companies House filings for DJC Leisure Ltd, and checked the Certificate of Incorporation. By scrolling down I saw that all 100 shares are owned by Kitten Holdings AG of Zug, in Switzerland. Check for yourself.
UPDATE: When I saw the name ‘Kitten’ I was thinking pussycats. But what if it’s an individual, such as this guy. Who certainly knows about money.
The onus is now on politicians, media and others to contact the Websters and ask them who really owns Penrhos. Also ask them who’s behind the money-moving machine in which they’re just a cog.
At the end of the day, we’re talking about more foreign-owned tourism. Which Wales needs like she needs more DEI, or more Net Zero, or more pressure groups, or more envirogrifters, or more corporate greenwashers, or more . . .
After 26 years of socialism the country I love is corrupted, and decaying; attracting parasites from around the globe. And they get welcomed; by those too fucking stupid to see them for what they are, or too fucking lazy to ask a few basic questions.
Reminding us that ‘environmentalism’ sees new groups spring up almost every day, proliferating like maggots on a corpse. That’s because ‘the environment’ nowadays is a great investment opportunity, just like the ‘climate emergency’. As a result, the toad-savers are now regularly rubbing shoulders with ‘investors’.
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DIFFICULT TO KEEP UP
As I suggest, its Welsh arm is new, and FFCC itself was officially formed in April 2020. Though it certainly existed before that date.
Landsec is, according to Wikipedia, “the largest commercial property development and investment company in the United Kingdom“. Companies House can’t tell us who owns holding company Landsec Securities Group Plc, but the Financial Timesthrows up some familiar names, with two BlackRock companies jointly owning 10%.
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But back to the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission.
The article informs us Davidson was succeeded by another Corruption Bay insider in the form of Chris Nott, senior partner at Capital Law, one of the ‘Welsh Government’s favourite firms.
The sequence seems to be that Jane Davidson became a Fellow of the RSA at the start of 2014. Before the year is out she’s chair of the RSA’s Welsh Advisory Board. In November 2017 the RSA launched the FFCC. Then, Nature Service Wales was set up in the second half of 2023.
Her Linkedin profile also tells us she attended very expensive Atlantic College. Like the daughters of Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP for Aberavon. Whose wife, former Danish PM, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, is coining it from wind turbine going up all over Wales.
Davidson herself was privately educated at Malvern Girls’ College.
It don’t matter from which angle you come at it, you soon realise the proselytisers of the climate scam, and the ‘mass-extinction-around-the-corner’ crew, belong to the middle class going through one of its periodic fits of ‘Isn’t it ghastly!‘
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I shall return to the FFCC and the Wales Nature Service at a later date, but for now I’m going to concentrate on the ubiquitous and very influential Jane Davidson.
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JANE DAVIDSON AND FRIENDS
It’s amazing how many entries you can find when searching the internet for ‘Jane Davidson’. An interesting one I turned up is an event she attended last year organised by the School of International Futures (SOIF) which is:
a global non-profit transforming futures for current and next generations
But she wasn’t lonely. For also there was the former Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, Sophie Howe; and her successor in that post, another Labour stalwart in the form of Derek Walker.
So we had three Labour insiders on the same jolly.
SOIF is organising another get-together of the hand-wringers this year at Lainston House in Wiltshire. But it don’t come cheap . . .
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I wonder who’ll be there from Wales.
Among the SOIF funders we find the UN, the WHO and – it should go without saying – George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Fitting in a way, seeing as Davidson, Howe, and Walker, are all linked to Coleg Soros in Talgarth.
Where, among the funders, is the A Team Foundation. In its latest accounts this lot explains its donation thus:
Black Mountains college curriculum challenges the basis of our destructive economy.
Yeah, we gotta do away with this “destructive economy” . . . that’s provided us with homes, jobs, cars, cheap energy, regular holidays. Let’s swap it for a future in which the only jobs will be for Davidson, Howe and their friends telling us what we can’t have, and what we can’t do.
And they’ll be funded by those who’ve grown rich from dispossessing 99% of us – but it’ll all be done for our own good!
So look on the bright side . . .
Er, no; there isn’t one.
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WHO IS THE REAL JANE DAVIDSON?
If we refer back to her Linkedin page, we see nothing before 2000. That source begins with her appointment as Minister for Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, after being elected to the Assembly in May 1999.
Though the important job was Minister of Environment, Sustainability and Housing 2007 – 2011. For the ‘environment’ is her true calling. Maybe her mission.
This BBC profile from September 1999 helps fill in some gaps. So let’s deal with the purely personal first. Not because I enjoy doing it but because Davidson has been so secretive about it. For example, never using her married name. Yet, thanks to the BBC, it’s in the public domain.
And the Beeb tells us she married Guy Roger George Stoate in January 1993. Stoate was a lecturer, and here he is in 2009 protesting at our Notional Assembly – where his wife was the Labour Member for Pontypridd!
I suppose that would be a good reason not to call yourself ‘Mrs Stoate’.
Since they moved west Guy has run a second-hand bookshop in Aberteifi, called Leafed Through. It’s a ‘community’ bookshop. Stoate and his bookshop are regularly in the local rags making donations to other ‘community’ groups.
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(I can’t help thinking the Cambrian News missed a glorious opportunity there. Can’t you see the headline? – ‘Stoate gives monkey to badgers’.)
As luck would have it, Tom Kearney of the Ceredigion Badger Group was also in the Labour party . . . ’til last month, when he resigned over Starmer not being socialist enough. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the Labour party in rural Wales is almost entirely made up of middle class English interferers, more alien than the Tories ever were.
With too many of them running ‘community’ ventures in Welsh communities they know sod all about. Driven by the same belief in their superior organisational abilities that helped build the empire they now repudiate.
But back to Mrs Stoate.
Look again at the BBC profile and let me direct you to the gap from 1996 until the first Assembly elections in May 1999. Was she working her Ponty constituency, even before Labour won the May ’97 general election and confirmed we’d be offered devolution?
If not, then what was she doing? Answers . . . post card . . .
But the bigger question is, when did she become the scheming zealot we see now, involved in everything; the ambassador for Agenda 2030 and the climate scam?
It tells us Jane Davidson bought into the climate scam over three decades ago.
But she had to be in Rio for the ‘conversion’ to happen. So why was she there? Because at the time – according to her BBC profile – she was working as a researcher for the late Rhodri Morgan, then Labour MP for Cardiff West.
Surely Rhodri Morgan didn’t send her? I can’t see that, especially as the House of Commons was sitting from 2 June 1992 to 16 July 1992 inclusive.
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So why was she in Rio? And who paid for the trip? Again, answers . . . post card . . .
She was minister for environment and sustainability in Wales from 2007 to 2011 where she was responsible for the Welsh Government agreeing to make sustainable development its central organising principle
And yet, “sustainable development” has such a positive ring to it. Surely, only a maniac intent on destroying the planet would not want it?
Well, yes; that’s how they want us to see it.
The problems come, first, with the realisation that the ‘danger’ the planet is facing is greatly exaggerated if not entirely imaginary, and the measures demanded to mitigate a manageable or non-existent threat are destroying economies and the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
And for reasons the zealots prefer not to discuss, it’s the West that’s suffering.
The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 was a key starting point for Wales’s efforts to reduce its carbon emissions and transition to a net zero economy
Even though it wasn’t really the “starting point“, this legislation means that everything done in Wales must accord with the diktats of UN Agenda 2030.
Every economy-killing, cost-raising, poverty-increasing lunacy.
I am delighted to report that the party to which I belong is serious about repealing this legislation.
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Davidson’s influence on political decision making didn’t end when she left the Assembly, nor with the passing of the Future Generations legislation. Because she never really left; she’s always there, sitting on this board, chairing that panel.
Giving her more political clout than anybody you’ve ever voted for.
One such position is chair of the Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group. An unsavoury crew of bought academics, enviroshysters, assorted grifters, and fraudsters who might be banged up if they weren’t selling their duff products on behalf of ‘the planet‘.
The ‘findings’ of this crew will be even more damaging for Wales than what’s gone before. But we can’t afford any more of it.
If the wreckage of the Welsh economy and the collapse of our public services was treated as a crime scene, then Jane Davidson’s fingerprints would be everywhere. Which is why I consider her to be the most dangerous individual in the disaster that devolution has proved to be.
I say that because incompetence and stupidity are one thing (and found everywhere in devolved Wales), but what Davidson and her kind are doing is a deliberate and calculated attempt to de-industrialise and impoverish Wales in order to showcase our self-destruction to the rest of the world.
And so I say, Agenda 2030 and Net Zero must be rejected if our people are to have decent jobs; if they are to live in homes they were able to buy; in a country where public services work; where food is plentiful, cheap, and we aren’t told what we can eat.
This is the Wales we should demand for our children. Not the dystopian vision being offered by ‘environmentalists’, and used to enrich their corporate backers.
In a sense, this is a follow-up to last week’s offering, Budget Boost For Rewilders And Globalists. This week, I’m looking at an example of ‘rewilding’ which, on closer inspection, turns out to be a tourism business – receiving funding for posing as a rewilding project.
I’ll fit this into a more general evaluation of ‘rewilding’, and what it really means.
Price has a background “working in the third and charity sectors“, and a “voluntary role as a Keep Wales Tidy Litter Champion“. Which gives us another link between that charity and Tir Natur.
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SETTING THE SCENE
This week, we’re mid-way between Abergavenny and Monmouth, the region I’ve dubbed ‘Abergavennyshire’ due to an influx of ‘progressives’ from the hell-holes of ‘Metro-Land’ and elsewhere.
(It should go without saying that Stephen Price lives in Abergavennyshire.)
Despite its distance from Corruption Bay, our politicians care more for these recent arrivals than for Welsh people. Certainly, that’s my conclusion when I consider the funding and other patronage bestowed on Abergavennyshire.
Perhaps a reward for this ingress strengthening Labour’s position as the largest party on Monmouthshire county council.
It’s here we find the Abergavenny Food Festival, Coleg Soros, Brecon Jazz Festival, Hay Festival, the many bodies arguing farmers are killing the Wye and the Usk. And of course – Gilestone farm, and the Green Man Festival. Etc., etc.
Map of Abergavennyshire. You’ll see it’s a cross-border unit because many of the new arrivals feel unsafe with thoughts of borders and nations.. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
Our destination today is not easy to reach. There’s no A road in the vicinity. Instead, it’s the B4233, then a track off that road, and after you’ve gone up a-ways, it’s another track to the destination.
This off-road excursion brings us to the The Grange Project. Run by Tom Constable and his wife Chloe, who bought the farm in April last year for £1.875m, without need of a loan or a mortgage.
But as the entry on Rewilding Britain tells us, there’s a lot more going on:
The vision for the site includes developing new nature-based tourism, including log cabins, alongside education and wellbeing programmes hosted in a beautiful converted barn on site. Chloe intends to use her background in clinical psychology to run courses focusing on the systemic resilience required to address the climate and biodiversity crises, while Tom will use his background in business to support ecopreneurs as they set-up and thrive on site.
Those who’ve been brainwashed, worked into a frenzy over a non-existent ‘climate crisis’, will be able to come to The Grange for treatment. At a cost, of course.
The Grange Project also does podcasts – in fact, Tom Constable is a professional – and here we find another link with last week’s piece.
Those who’ve given themselves nightmares from reading too much Monbiot won’t be the only visitors, for The Grange also offers corporate away days. Where the IT department of Global Gizmos Inc can come gaze at trees and stuff.
Better still . . . for the trifling sum of £10,000 you can enjoy “two bespoke corporate away days“. Read more in the Corporate Partnership Proposal.
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I tell you what . . . for half that (in ready cash) you can have two corporate away days in my back garden, There’s flower beds, and a tree, and, er, grass, and if it’s wildlife you’re after then I’ll get our cat to put in an appearance.
If it’s raining you can sit in the conservatory. The missus will lay on a cuppa and biccies. Can’t say fairer than that, squire.
I have no doubt that the companies turning up for these eco-jollies will be claiming tax deductions, which will contribute to the ‘black hole’ in the UK accounts, and be used to justify freezing pensioners this winter.
That’s the ‘circular economy’ you keep hearing about.
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And sure enough, in the Corporate Partnership Proposal we find predictable ‘quotations’.
One from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), that outfit launched by Nazis using environmentalism as the new way to seize power and cull the untermensch.
The other is attributed to ‘Native American Wisdom’. (Are people still falling for that bollocks!) Here’s some wisdom from a source as much Native American as the one quoted: ‘Big Chief Jac-on-Blog say: “Environmentalists speak with forked tongue“‘.
The Grange website also offers, “our own glamping cabins and bespoke bell tents“, and elsewhere, “off grid escapes” in caravan-type structures made by Herefordshire chippie Simon Whitfield.
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Whitfield runs The Tiny Home Company. When I tried to find it on the Companies House website I drew a blank. So I went back to the website and scrolled down the homepage, where, in the smallest font imaginable, was: “The Tiny Home Company is a trading name of WB Capital Ventures Limited“.
But it was only by copying and posting it into Word that I was able to read that. Why so small? Very odd.
The twelve shares split 8 – 4 in favour of the older brother. Who maybe put up the cash. He has over a million pounds sitting in the bank account of his other company.
I’ll end this section with a brief look at what’s registered with Companies House. There are two companies.
One’s Wild Grange Farm Ltd, launched as recently as September 5, with the Constables as the only directors and shareholders.
And then there’s the Community Interest Company, formed in August, Wild Grange CIC. Again, Tom and Chloe Constable are the only directors (or members) and shareholders. Which I found odd. Because with a CIC I would expect to see others named, representing the community that will benefit.
This is usually people in the vicinity. So I went to the Companies House website entry for Wild Grange CIC and the Certificate of Incorporation. Most of which is pro forma.
Though towards the end it sets out who might benefit from the CIC:
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Which is fair enough, and what I expected. But what I read earlier in the document has me thinking. I refer to Rewilding Britain, as the ‘asset locked body‘.
A worst case scenario might be . . . the farm title is transferred to the CIC, which liquidates, and Rewilding Britain takes over The Grange.
The mystery is company number 08943330. For it refers to Mental Mastery Ltd, of Bournemouth, that dissolved 18 months after being formed, without filing anything.
I’ll assume it’s a typo. But if not . . .
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THOUGHTS ON REWILDNG
Let me be clear, there might be a role for small-scale rewilding such as we’re asked to see at The Grange.
Thinking again of my back garden . . . if I let it run wild it would sprout plants, flowers; attract butterflies and other insects, some small mammals, maybe a foraging hedgehog.
But once we talk about pine marten, beaver, wild boar, deer, wild ponies, ancient cattle, then we need more land than even the 1,000 acres Tir Natur is hoping to buy.
Because without large areas for these animals to roam and live naturally, problems such as stress, over-grazing, and in-breeding will occur.
Of course, food can be brought in, and fresh bloodlines can be introduced; but if ‘rewilding’ doesn’t create a self-perpetuating ecosystem, as in nature, then that defeats the whole object of the exercise.
One answer might be linking separated projects with ‘corridors’. I mention this because the idea features regularly in rewilding fantasies. Such as one in Cornwall called Tor to Shore. (Does that ring a bell?)
While Helman Tor sits near the top of the Par River, areas downstream are surrounded by farmland, where the project will partner with local farmers to tackle agricultural pollution and create ‘wildlife corridors’ – areas of habitat that . . . connect with other nature-rich sites, allowing wildlife to thrive beyond the reserve’s boundaries.
But how well do animals understand ‘corridors’? Not well at all; so that would mean mile after mile of fencing . . . which will inevitably get broken.
Mrs Jones will wake one morning to find aurochs feasting on her prize geraniums. And, then, when she goes out to shoo them away, and one of the buggers tramples her . . .
I haven’t mentioned predators like wild cat, lynx, and wolf. All of which appear in rewilders’ literature. Yet they have to be present, for without the balance created by their natural predators introduced prey animals will need to be regularly culled.
As deer are culled in the Highlands, due to the absence of wolves. While a shortage of prey animals will see predators going elsewhere to get a meal. (‘Look out, Mrs Jones!‘)
Which means that for a rewilding project to be viable it would need 20,000 or more self-contained acres. There would need to be enough food for a range of herbivores and foragers, whose numbers would be kept in check by predators – as in the wild.
In a small country like Wales we just don’t have that land to spare. Not if we; a) want a farming industry and b) let people access the countryside.
Which brings us to a very fundamental question, one confronting us at Grange Farm: ‘What is the real purpose of rewilding?’ This article (February 2023) asks a very similar question, and gives some disturbing answers.
A bit leftist for my tastes but it still makes good points about farms being lost, and corporate investment through middle men, agents, and front organisations.
One day Archie’s a ruthless investments guru, next day he’s saving the planet. These things happen. After Christmas I’m joining the Socialist Workers Party. (Yes, really!)
Archie’s a busy man for Nattergal, and the company’s mystery owner. Let’s look at three recent ventures. Starting with High Fen Wildland, where we read:
High Fen will offer wellness, eco-tourism, educational and research opportunities to provide opportunities for people as well as wildlife.
Wildlife comes last. Almost an afterthought.
The other two are Boothby Wildland, where, “Nattergal hopes to generate revenues through the sale of ecosystem services (natural capital)“. And Harold’s Park Wildland, that “will generate income from the sale of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) units and corporate sponsorship, and will support nature based tourism and recreation“.
2/ They are no longer working farms producing food.
3/ They have received substantial ‘Welsh Government ‘ funding
Always worth remembering when some clown gets all misty-eyed over ‘rewilding’.
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CONCLUSION
On a fundamental level, The Grange Project makes no environmental sense due to the increased traffic emissions as engines struggle with gradients and rough tracks to even reach the place.
More environmental damage than the working farm it replaced. Unless of course you want to be really stupid and introduce the threat posed to us all by farting cows. (Fortunately, ‘Dr’ Bill Gates has a solution.)
The Grange Project is clearly a tourism project and a ‘wellness’ retreat for hysterical Guardian readers raking in extra money by presenting itself as a rewilding project. Like those we looked at earlier linked with Archie Struthers.
I believe genuine rewilding is incompatible with daily visits from the public, especially noisy children, and middle management on a raucous day out. Making it all rather phoney.
Especially if there’s ‘natural capital’ and ‘biodiversity net gain’ involved.
And let’s remember that The Grange is less than 100 acres in total. From what I can see, a few trees have been planted and pigs allowed to muddy up some fields. Is that really ‘rewilding’?
If so, then why aren’t we all offered money to let our gardens run wild? A few thousand of us, in Wales alone, could make a big contribution to the environment and biodiversity.
Because, gentle reader, ‘rewilding’, with the involvement of outfits like BlackRock, is not about saving the planet; it complements legislation and other measures intended to undermine farming, thereby freeing up land for acquisition and investment.
‘Rewilding’ is just the prettied-up face of the Globalist land grab.
Once you understand that – everything else makes sense!
This post is about a group I’ve mentioned before, Tir Natur. It’s not a big outfit, it was only launched in 2022. I’m writing about it again because my attention has been drawn to what might be a major development.
Which coincides with the UK government’s decision to make most family farms liable for punitive inheritance taxes. This measure will leave many farming families with little alternative but to sell up.
Which is almost certainly the intention.
For the Treasury only expects to benefit by £520m a year from this legislation. Inconsequential when set against the harm that’ll be caused to the rural economy; and in Wales, the damage inflicted on a culture and a way of life.
An opportunity has presented itself to Tir Natur. A significant area of land which has been deemed unsuitable for commercial forestry and the dominance of purple-moor grass and bracken undermine its grazing value.
But is it being grazed now, or not? If it is, then do the graziers agree with that evaluation? I ask because later we’re told: “Overgrazing over the years has restricted natural regeneration and reduced not only the ecological, but agricultural value of the land“.
And yet, things can’t be that bad. For the place seems to be swarming with wildlife; on the ground, in the trees, in the water, and above our heads.
A skylark . . . over our heads . . . whilst a male roe deer, springs up . . . Pine marten are known to be neighbours whilst red squirrel are seen here . . . Otter . . . sandpipers and goosanders. Red Kite and buzzard hunt for . . . small mammals in the thick tussocks . . . osprey patrol the water . . . trout and pike abound.
Despite this picture painted of a Cambrian Eden, a paragraph or two later we’re asked to: “Imagine, then, a new approach. Ancient Welsh cattle and ponies enter the land“.
So there must be good grazing available, just not for sheep and cattle.
It also talks of pigs “disturbing tussocks” . . . presumably the tussocks wherein dwell the small mammals providing prey for kite and buzzard.
The section outlining Tir Natur’s plans concludes with looking forward to: “Ground nesters such as golden plover and curlew make their triumphant return“. How will they cope with the trampling horses and cattle, or the gobble-up-everything porkers?
From the area Tir Natur says it wants to buy. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
What is graphically described is a flourishing ecosystem, so I can’t see how Tir Natur’s vision improves on that. Am I missing something?
Maybe in writing this glorious example of bucolica the writer got carried away and ended up contradicting himself, or herself, or theyself.
And let’s bear in mind that this land could be bought by a commercial entity from outside of Wales. The new owner could then make lots of money from allowing Tir Natur to graze reindeer or anything else they fancy.
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NEW ARRIVALS
When I looked at Tir Natur a couple of years back there were four trustees (of the charity), but there have been changes. One of the founders, Stephen Jenkins, is no longer a trustee, but serves as a Development Officer. Here he is with the rest of The Team.
(It should go without saying that Andrew Stumpf, chair of Keep Wales Tidy, lives in the White Highlands of Abergavennyshire. A sink hole for Welsh public funding)
When we look at the changes in personnel at Tir Natur it tells us by whom and for what purpose Tir Natur has been captured.
The other member of The Team is Dan Ward. Who has worked, and may still work, for Natural Resources Wales. But for the purposes of this article, I want to focus on his link to North Star Transition (NST).
To give you a better understanding of where we’re heading, go to this post of mine from a year ago and scroll down to the section ‘North Star Transition’. Below is a clip from the NST website I used back then.
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And here’s the full article, written by North Star co-founder Jyotir Banerjee. It begins: “Large-scale investment funding is missing in action when it comes to transforming landscapes.” (“Missing in action”! Are we at war?)
There is an urgent need for large-scale funding of nature-based solutions across many landscapes if the UK is to achieve net zero, environmental, social and health transformations.
So who’s Jérôme Tagger?
Well, he’s American, based in Brooklyn, New York, and he may still be hiding under his duvet after Donald Trump’s election victory. Here’s his Linkedin profile.
In June this year, it was Sally Weale, documentary film maker. She was, until March 2022, a director of The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.
Next, in July, it was our old friend Tim Birch of Extinction Rebellion. He fled Derbyshire a few years back with a posse of gamekeepers in pursuit. He is now a director of Wildlife Trusts Wales . . . which voted itself out of existence a few years ago to become a county branch of the English parent body.
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And, finally, on September 26, it was James Hitchcock. If that name rings a bell, it’s because he’s appeared on this blog a number of times after coming to Wales to be CEO of the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust.
He quit that job last month, and became Advocacy Coordinator – Wales for Rewilding Britain. Wales, a country he doesn’t even know. But he does know who’s who in Corruption Bay, and that’s what matters.
That’s quite a cast. Why are they all now involved with Tir Natur, a small outfit, with an income that last year doubled to just over twelve grand?
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GLOBALIST BONANZA
You might be wondering why this Labour government would want to destroy farming, and why its supporters welcome the move. Let me explain.
Taking the supporters first . . . the Pinkhairs may genuinely believe they’re sticking it to the super-rich (and perhaps even freeing the serfs), because they really are that fucking stupid. Whereas old-style leftists may have a hazy recollection of kulaks being vilified in the smoke-filled rooms of yore.
But above all that, the government in Westminster is a Globalist tool . . . one that was not made by Keir Starmer’s father, but by some very unpleasant people indeed.
These Globalists, who I’ve identified on the blog before, want to take over (among other things) farmland. Firstly, to profit from insane subsidies and payments given to those claiming to be saving the planet. Secondly, to take them nearer their ultimate objective – control of the food supply. And by that means, to control human behaviour.
To help them achieve this they must control what we see, hear, and say. This explains their puppets demanding hate speech legislation, and laws against ‘misinformation’. Also, banging people up for social media posts.
For they must control the narrative. But it’s more difficult for them now because their mainstream media is no longer trusted, and there are channels they do not control.
Another problem they have is that the ‘climate crisis’ isn’t co-operating, and hasn’t been for years. There’s no marked deterioration in the weather, and the net zero lunacy imposed to combat this ‘threat’ is being increasingly resisted.
The fallback position is the ‘nature crisis’, or ‘biodiversity loss’, which asks us to believe that species are disappearing almost daily. And just as with the ‘climate crisis’, it’s all our fault. This looming tragedy can only be averted by us making major sacrifices – which again, will involve assaults on farming.
For to save the dormouse we must stop eating cheese.
Just as the ‘climate crisis’ relied on con men like Al Gore, and voodoo ‘science’, so, when it comes to species depletion, we are expected to heed the sermonising of those who want big dollops of cash to put things right. And of course, they also want land.
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The more I’ve learnt and thought about environmentalism the clearer it’s become why top environmentalists found it easy to work with the Globalists – because they’re one and the same.
Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.
And I bet you’ve never heard of it! But I’m not sure you’re supposed to.
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DARKER PAST
The IUCN was formed in 1948 and took up residence in Gland, Switzerland. Feeling it needed a more public face, in 1961 the IUCN helped launch the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), also headquartered in Gland.
The founder and first president of the WWF was Prince Bernhardt, consort to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. Though he himself was German and had, like many other princelings, joined the Nazi Party in 1933.
Prince Bernhardt was also a member the shadowy Club of the Isles, another organisation that helped give birth to the WWF. This group of royals and business tycoons uses environmentalism to protect and promote their post-imperial interests. Especially in Africa.
Involved in both was Philip, consort to the late queen of England. His sisters all married German princes, and three of them became Nazis. In 1948 Elizabeth’s father, George VI, banned Philip’s family from his daughter’s wedding.
Among the activities of the WWF and associated movements that get less publicity than saving pandas is taking over vast areas of Africa for game reserves, and ‘parks’. When the evicted populations protest they are dealt with as trespassers, or even shot as ‘poachers’.
Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO, comes to give Starmer his orders. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
There are incredible allegations made against the WWF and those behind it, but let’s ignore the more outlandish claims – such as ‘anthropological reserves’ in Amazonia – to consider two features that are undeniable.
Firstly, there’s the link with fascism or, more specifically, Nazism. Secondly, there’s the belief the world is overpopulated.
Seeing as we’re 80 years on from WWII, we can perhaps ignore a (direct) Nazi link. But the belief in an overpopulated world is central to the modern Globalist-environmentalist agenda.
It explains so why many refer to that agenda as being “anti-human“. Critics can see it, but may not understand the background that makes their suspicions correct.
Let me end this section by explaining how the agenda is already making us poorer in ways other than immediate costs like higher electricity bills.
Earlier we looked at Keep Wales Tidy. It receives huge amounts of ‘Welsh Government’ funding, not to keep Wales tidy, but to promote the Globalist agenda. And the same applies to countless other ‘charities’, third sector outfits, even pressure groups.
It’s amazing . . . the Welsh NHS is falling apart, kids leave school unable to read and write, but Corruption Bay can always find money for organisations that are actually working against our interests. Even threatening our national identity.
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CONCLUSION, AND WARNING
The West is in a dangerous place, with the Globalists controlling politicians and uniparty systems. And this control costs lives, tens of thousands of young lives in the war in eastern Europe, from which BlackRock profits hugely.
If the West is in dangerous waters, then Wales is docked up Shit Creek.
Yet I have such a low opinion of Senedd Members that I think they might genuinely believe they’re doing the right thing. They’ve certainly swallowed all the Globalist scams. But it’s not just our clowns.
Not long before they dined with Larry Fink of BlackRock, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were granted an audience with ‘Dr’ Bill Gates, of Covid fame. Look how attentive and respectful they are!
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In Cardiff, London, Brussels and elsewhere politicians are in thrall to Globalism, with the leftist majority in the Senedd pre-disposed to imposing petty regulations and restrictions on personal freedom.
Which makes them putty in the hands of kings, princes and others who are used to exercising power. Those who once marched with the workers now dance for Hapsburgs and Bourbons.
Having mentioned BlackRock a few times, here’s an example of how it operates. Some ten years ago planning permission was granted for a wind farm in Blaenau Gwent. Within months it was snapped up by you know who.
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Many suspect the wind farms planned today, by Parabola Bute and others, will go the same way once planning permission is obtained.
That’s how BlackRock and the rest operate. They don’t make or create anything, they just use other people’s money to buy up things, corporations and assets which then give them vast economic strength, and with that strength, political power.
And it’ll be the same with land acquired by Tir Natur, and all the other land from which Welsh farmers will be evicted. If it’s not BlackRock then it’ll be some other Globalist corporation working to exactly the same agenda.
So don’t be fooled by these machinations pretending to save the planet. It’s the biggest asset grab in history. And as I’ve explained, it has worrying antecedents.
Always remember that behind the cuddly image of environmentalism lurk the shades of those who thought Hitler was the good guy. Which helps explain why Globalism is just another attempt at world domination.
Demanding reduced population levels in order to tackle the ‘climate crisis’ is no more than the ugly eugenics of a century ago made more palatable.
At root, it’s just repackaged Nazism. So wake up and realise it.
♦ end ♦
UPDATE 27.11.2024: Today Nation.Cymru put out a piece in defence of the Tir Natur project, and almost certainly in response to the piece above I’d put out two days earlier. It was written by Stephen Price, N.C’s Senior Reporter.
Price lives in Abergavennyshire, has a background “working in the third and charity sectors“, and a “voluntary role as a Keep Wales Tidy Litter Champion“.
I’m returning to the ‘Bute’ stable of companies, a subject I’ve ignored for a while. More especially, some aspects of Bute’s operations that may have been overlooked.
1/ How did investment company and property developers the Parabola group, from which Bute emerged, learn about the opportunities offered by wind turbines in Wales?
I’m starting with some background, which I think sets the scene. So please indulge me there before we move on later to the ‘meat’ of the piece.
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THE TRAILBLAZER GETTING A LITTLE HELP FROM THE COMRADES
Before the boys from Parabola ever heard of Nant Mithil, Waun Hesgog, or Blaencothi, other nobly-intentioned businessmen, alarmed by the impending climate crisis, were trying their damnedest to cover central Wales in wind turbines.
I’m going to focus on one of those wind farms; Hendy, to the east of Llandrindod.
Planning permission was refused by Powys County Council in April 2017, and that decision was upheld by a planning inspector a year later. But then, Lesley Griffiths, Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs Secretary for the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ intervened, to ignore the inspector’s decision and give Hendy the green light.
From now on ‘Welsh Ministers’ had authority to rule on electricity generation projects with a maximum installed capacity of 10MW to 50MW. Below that, responsibility lies with local authorities; and above, it’s the UK government.
Which means that developers pitch their projects in the 10 – 50MW ‘sweet spot’.
Radford was very close to, if not fronting for, the U+I group. Though it seemed he also had his own piggy-bank in Njord Energy Ltd.
Lobbying Powys councillors on behalf of the Hendy wind farm was Anna McMorrin. She was seen at a meeting on 27 April 2017, desperately trying to hand a note to councillors considering the project.
She was working for Invicta Public Affairs, which has its headquarters in Newcastle, but also a presence in Edinburgh, and Glasgow.
She had been working as a Spad in Corruption Bay, for which she was rewarded by being selected as the Labour candidate for Cardiff North. In June 2017 she became the MP.
Maybe this is the first instance of someone working simultaneously for the Labour party and wind energy developers. There have been many more since Anna McMorrin.
Once they got to know each other, I’m sure Radford made the boys from Parabola understand that to get anything done in Wales you must have people working for you inside the Labour party.
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THEY MEET, AND THE BOYS FROM PARABOLA BECOME BUTE
In September 2018 Windward Generation Ltd was launched; the name changed to Bute Energy the following month, and finally became RSCO 3750 Ltd in March 2020.
The founding directors were Oliver James Millican and Lawson Douglas Steele, who were joined a week later by Radford. The man from Hendy left in December 2019 and was replaced by Stuart Allan George, who’d left Parabola with Millican and Steele.
But I want to go back a little further, and consider the ‘Windward’ name.
Just before Christmas 2014 Windward Enterprises Ltd was launched. This company’s stated business was ‘Financial management’. The sole director was Oliver James Millican, using secretarial services in Edinburgh, but a Newcastle office address for himself. (Newcastle being where Parabola started out.)
This was a long time before any interest was expressed in wind turbines.
In November 2016 the address switched to Broadgate Tower in London, where we now find Parabola; and the company name changed in August 2018 to WELN1 Ltd.
We encounter the ‘Windward’ name a number of times early on in this saga, but what if it has nothing to do with wind power, and instead refers to the Windward Islands in the Caribbean?
And there seems to have been a fourth departure. For on 31 May 2018, in addition to Windward LS Ltd (Lawson Steele), and Windward SG Ltd (Stuart George), a company called Windward BW Ltd was launched.
The ‘BW’ is Barry Woods. I can’t tell you much about him, except that he’s Irish, and he’d also worked for Parabola. In fact, he was a designated partner, along with Parabola Real Estate Investment Management LLP, in Parabola Partners LLP.
Just like Millican, Steele and George, Woods quit Parabola in November 2017.
He then seems to have parted company with the other three on 24 September 2019. The last trace of Woods sees him running Woods Investment Management Ltd in Edinburgh, which folded after a couple of years, in March 2021.
So we have four men, all in their thirties, and all working for a major property and investment group (one of them the boss’s son); but late in 2017 they apparently hear the planet calling, sever their ties with Parabola, and go off to erect wind turbines in Wales.
Do you buy that?
Something else that gives off a bit of a whiff is that if the four of them had started up on their own, I would have expected to see them as partners. But Millican Junior in control suggests a continuing link with his father’s business empire.
Using the Parabola address at the Broadgate Tower, 20 Primrose Street, London EC2A 2EW is also a bit iffy.
It’s far more likely that, in 2017, the four turbineers started setting up companies in Wales, ultimately owned and controlled by Parabola, to capitalise on the ‘How many turbines would you like, duckie?’ DNS system.
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MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
Funding is a vital consideration because more than 20 wind farms, an unknown number of solar arrays, at least 6 Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), and mile after mile of pylons, requiring connectors and other whatsits, do not come cheap.
Admittedly, nothing has yet been built, but even so, Bute employs dozens of people, rents or leases office space, and promotes itself relentlessly by sponsoring everything from the Ystradgynlais Wet T-shirt Olympics to the Llanfair Caereinion Refuge for Distressed Ferrets.
So where’s the money coming from to fund this unrivalled extravaganza of bird dicing?
We can (perhaps surprisingly) rule out the Development Bank of Wales, a soft touch that throws moolah at magic bean salesmen and landfill-owning friends of politicians.
The WPP involvement is a bit of nonsense that it’s hoped will give the impression Wales is benefitting from wind power. Though on a more practical and political level I suppose it gives Bute even more leverage in Corruption Bay.
I’m going to focus on Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and see where that takes us.
Now the first thing to make clear is that CIP is not a bank, it does not provide funding. The clue appears to be in ‘Partners’, for it seems investors looking for green projects go to CIP, which then finds them the right fit.
Or it could be t’other way around. Either way, we can be sure CIP takes its cut.
The latest accounts for CI IV Dragon Holdco (y/e 31.12.2022) give a list of ‘Subsidiary undertakings’ (page 20) in which the company holds a ‘golden share’. These are Bute companies, including Green Generation Energy Networks Cymru Ltd, which wants to build a network of pylons.
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And as you can see below, since October last year all 79,000,000 shares in the holding company are in the possession of Copenhagen Infrastructure V SCSp.
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Which can be found at 16 Rue Eugene Ruppert, L2453, Luxembourg, the EU’s internal tax haven.
Vistra is big itself in electricity production and supply, but it also ‘partners with suppliers’, which would presumably include Bute.
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But why is Bute dealing with Copenhagen Investment Partners which is dealing with a US company working out of an office in Luxembourg? Especially when Vistra has offices in the UK.
The name Vistra was vaguely familiar, but not in connection with Bute. It was linked more with the Bristol address you see above, and Galileo, which wants a wind farm at Bryn Cadwgan, to the east of Lampeter.
Galileo is based in Zurich, Switzerland. It began life locally at Vistra’s Bristol office before moving to Edinburgh. But there’s also Galileo Empower Wales Ltd which has a presence on Cathedral Road in Cardiff.
The Bute companies are fronting for Vistra of Texas through Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The ‘golden share’ in so many Bute companies means that those projects are effectively owned by Vistra.
With an obvious connection via Oliver Millican to his father’s Parabola group. Which we must assume is also getting a cut.
The sequence would appear to be: Parabola spawns Bute, Bute goes to CIP, CIP finds Vistra, and Vistra either puts in its own money, or it finds funding from . . .
UPDATE 2: 30.04.2024: Another source reminded me there are many Njord companies. Often linked to CIP. A little digging brought up yet another, and an intriguing connection.
Her Partner, John Uden, was recruited (for no obvious reason) to sit on Bute’s Welsh Advisory Board.
I think we’re at the stage now where so many Labour people (some I’ve never mentioned) are benefitting financially from Bute / CIP that an independent inquiry is needed.
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CONCLUSION
The situation is that through Developments of National Significance, and now the Infrastructure Bill, Wales is being desecrated and exploited by foreign corporations.
The ferrets of Llanfair Caereinion notwithstanding, there are no real benefits for us; nothing in terms of jobs, or anything else.
The real beneficiary is England, where communities can and do object to wind farms. Which is why, as reliable sources of electricity generation are phased out on the orders of Globalist ‘environmentalists’, electricity generated in Wales must go to England, and this explains the need for so many pylons.
The wind farms, solar arrays and pylons in Wales (and Scotland), are also needed to help the UK / England meet its Net Zero commitments. Which I suppose raises the possibility of political pressure being applied from London.
Joking aside, and looming over all other considerations, my biggest worry is that even though we can now identify Bute, and Parabola, and CIP, and Vistra, we still can’t be sure where the money for these projects begins its journey.
Which provides two major headaches.
If the Bute funding needs to be ‘filtered’ so many times (with everybody taking a slice) then it raises suspicions that the original funder may not be entirely acceptable.
And if we don’t know who ultimately owns the installations, then how do we get these sites restored when they come to the end of their working lives?
Instead of being suckered by those fronting these projects those pretending to run this country need to establish who is ultimately funding each and every project operating in Wales or proposed for Wales.
We also need to look into the relationship between Bute Energy / Parabola / CIP / Vistra and the ‘Welsh Government’. In particular, how it’s grown to the point where Bute has a position close to being a state-sponsored monopoly.
In this piece I’ll explain that the ‘Welsh Government”s Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) is just the latest in a long series of attacks on the Welsh family farm, and all that that means.
The SFS demands that 10% of every farm be given over to trees, with a further 10% to ‘habitat’. Many farms will become unprofitable. Which is the whole point of the SFS – to release more land for other uses.
Today’s piece is bigger than others I’ve put out recently, some 3,400 words; but it’s broken up into sections, so take it a chunk at a time.
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2008: ONE WALES: ONE PLANET
I’ve chosen to start in May 2008 with the publication One Wales: One Planet. Sub-titled, ‘The Sustainable Development Scheme of the Welsh Assembly Government’. You’ll find a revealing extract below.
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Let’s look at the first bullet point. Who decides Wales’s “environmental limits“? Who calculates our “fair share of the Earth’s resources“? Who measures our “ecological footprint“? (I’m a size 9.) And how can anyone work out, “the global average availability of resources“.
This is the kind of gobbledegook you can only get away with when you live a very sheltered life, mixing only with others in your bubble.
The final paragraph (below, my emphasis) leaves us in no doubt that everything that’s done in Wales from now on will be predicated on the belief that human beings are killing the planet.
To achieve this, sustainable development (the process that leads to Wales becoming a sustainable nation) will be the central organising principle of the Welsh Assembly Government, and we will encourage and enable others to embrace sustainable development as their central organising principle.
But as I’ve explained, there’s something more sinister behind it all. Which is not to say that those pushing the nonsense don’t believe it, I’m sure many of them do. But there are also many who go along with it because it’s become the accepted wisdom of the circles in which they mix.
Before I forget, chapter 8 is headed: ‘The Wellbeing of Wales’. (Now there’s a clue!)
The administration at the time was a Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition, and to jog your memory, here’s a cabinet group photo. The minister for environment and sustainability was Jane Davidson.
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2010: TECHNICAL ADVICE NOTE 6, ONE PLANET DEVELOPMENTS
July of 2010 brought joy unbounded with the announcement that hippy encampments, thrown up illegally (but with a nod and a wink from Corruption Bay), were now to be legitimised
Making TAN 6 little more than a general amnesty, or granting retrospective planning approval.
Dressed up as ‘sustainable living’, ‘self-sufficiency’, and God knows what else, they were in reality just a way around planning regulations for hippies and others to build ugly shacks in open country.
There were conditions attached, of course, not least, being able to prove that these impositions were to some degree self-sufficient . . . but nobody ever checks.
Interestingly, OPDs came to the notice of the World Economic Forum, which exposed the fundamental contradiction by urging people to move to Wales.
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For OPDs were justified by arguing they’d reduce Wales’ carbon footprint. But this could only happen if local people moved out of traditional dwellings into OPD shacks. That never happened.
Instead, people moved from England to previously unused land . . . where they kept farting animals, burned wood, and drove old diesel vehicles; so that by these and other means increased Wales’ carbon footprint.
In a recent publication I noticed that DEI had been added to the chicken entrails in the voodoo stew. This news came from Sophie Howe herself, just before she stepped down as Future Generations Commission in 2022:
I am pleased to see the emphasis given to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, a key component of sustainability . . .
But despite the posturing, OPDs remain exclusively English, White, middle class.
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2011 OCTOBER: ALUN DAVIES AND ORGANIC ARABLE FARMING
Then there was the plan to help farmers go organic.
Alun Davies, deputy minister of agriculture, announced that priority would be given to arable farmers, and those converting to arable farming . . . in a country where climate and topography dictate that livestock farming will dominate.
But let’s not be picky, for I’m sure this news was welcomed in the pomegranate groves of Pembrokeshire and the broccoli orchards enhancing the Vale of Clwyd, but it offered sod all to most Welsh farmers.
This initiative might reveal the growing vegan influence. For these had been brought in from the fringes to serve the Globalists’ plan to eliminate livestock farming and take control of the land and the food supply.
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2013 DECEMBER: ALUN DAVIES AND HIS TWO-PILLAR TRICK
The above date was when Alun Davies, now farm minister, announced that funding from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Pillar 1 (direct payment to farmers) would be moved to Pillar 2 (‘other rural activities’).
Davies could have transferred anything up to 15%. Almost inevitably, he opted for the full whack. Defending the decision by saying Pillar 1 should not be seen as a “never-ending subsidy“.
To understand Alun Davies, and the socialist attitude to farming, here’s an outburst from him in October 2014.
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The former minister in the Labour ‘Welsh Assembly Government’ (for he was sacked in July 2014) rails against ‘subsidies’; yet his administration had built up a vast third sector of cronies – all living off public funding!
And things have got worse, for now the ‘Welsh Government’ throws millions of pounds at Sustrans, Stonewall, wildlife trusts, and other pressure groups.
Clearly, in the eyes of Labour politicians there’s nothing wrong with subsidies per se, it all depends who’s getting them.
2015: WELL-BEING OF FUTURE GENERATIONS (WALES) ACT
This legislation was a long time in the planning, but we know who wrote it.
For this article from Sustainable Brands (scroll down) tells us it was Jane Davidson, who we met earlier as the minister for environment and sustainability in the 2007 – 2011 Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition.
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The article also says Davidson, ” . . . had her damascene moment at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992“. But I don’t buy that.
For at the time she was a researcher for Labour MP for Cardiff West, Rhodri Morgan, who of course went on to become first minister of the Assembly. So was she representing him, or the Labour party, at Rio?
I think she’d already had her ‘damascene moment’, and she was there as one of the converted.
When she became Assembly Member for Pontypridd in 1999 Ponty was her ticket to more power and influence to push the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) narrative.
The significance of the Well-being Act is that, as was hinted in One Wales: One Planet in 2008, all other considerations must be subordinated to fighting the so-called ‘climate crisis’.
And this being the socialist hell that is Wales, the Act introduced yet more pointless bureaucracy and more opportunities for virtue signalling, with Public Services Boards for each of our 22 local authorities. (Yes, that’s right, 22 local authorities for a country of 3.2 million people.)
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Perhaps the real lesson Wales could teach the world is how to bring a country to its knees. For this is the Globalist plan for the West.
The politicians and their pet parasites who achieved this resent giving money to farmers and others, who actually work, and produce necessities.
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2016 SEPTEMBER: START OF NVZ ‘CONSULTATION’
A Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) is, according to the ‘Welsh Government’, “an area of land draining into ground or surface waters that are currently high in nitrate, or may become so if appropriate actions are not taken“.
It had always been accepted there was a problem, but it had also been understood that the problem was very localised, and seemed to be associated with dairy cattle.
The map above, produced by Natural Resources Wales (NRW), shows that Water Framework Directive (WFD) catchment areas covering some 90% of the country reported 0 – 4 incidents in the period 01.01.2010 to 01.01.2016.
The problem was clearly very localised.
Which is why NRW suggested increasing the area covered by NVZ legislation from 2.4% (750 farm holdings) to 8%. But, and here I quote from:
The (now) Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs, Lesley Griffiths, responded to the consultation replies a year later, in December 2017. She said she was “minded to introduce a whole Wales approach”.
Truth is, that had been the plan all along.
As an example of politicians going out of their way to make life more difficult for farmers – because of course there would be more expense and increased form-filling – the handling of NVZ legislation would be difficult to surpass.
This is how NFU Cymru described it:
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As things stand, the ‘Welsh Government’ has been forced to be marginally less vindictive. With slightly less punitive measures being introduced in stages, the next due in August.
Wales voted to leave the European Union 23 June 2016.
That is, the people voted to leave. The political class was outraged at the stupidity of the hoi polloi. The media agreed. While the ever-multiplying legions of third sector parasites were aghast at the thought of losing such a lucrative funding stream.
In response the ‘Welsh Government’ produced ‘Brexit and our Land‘. Wherein we read (page 3) what was to replace the CAP.
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But how can it talk of “food production” when we know Labour’s attitude towards farmers? While the reference to timber did not mean developing a genuine timber industry, it referred to what I’m now going to highlight.
Idly flicking through the annual accounts of Stoke engineering firm Goodwin Plc the other night I found this, on page 17.
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The site of this enviro-colonialism is north west of Llanwrtyd. But it’s happening all over Wales.
This is how it works: Land is bought and trees are planted by investors like Goodwin, who will own the land, the trees, and the carbon they capture. This carbon can not be included in Wales’ carbon inventory.
Which means that outside investors could buy up 50% of Welsh land, make billions from carbon capture, none of which would contribute to Wales’ national figure (or economy) – and the ‘Welsh Government’ would pay them to do it!
The rest of rural Wales, and the post-industrial areas, will be surrendered to foreign-owned wind farms whose owners will dole out beads and blankets to the desperate inhabitants of doomed communities.
And it’s all built on a scam, for carbon is no threat to the environment.
As for “Public Goods“, this is a phrase picked up from the bad company Welsh politicians keep. It can mean whatever the person using it wants it to mean.
Just think of it as bollocks; usually delivered in Estuary English.
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2018 AUGUST: SUMMIT TO SEA
This project links with Brexit, and the publication you read about in the previous section. It’s ‘environmentalists’ seeking to capitalise on the new reality to grab a huge swathe of Welsh land.
The project began before the date I’ve just given, but I used that date because it’s the first time I mentioned the project on this blog. Click here and scroll down to the section ‘Re-wilding’.
In essence, a number of individuals and organisations came together and hatched a plan to requisition 10,000 hectares, from Pumlumon up to the Dyfi estuary, and out to sea for a few miles.
Below you’ll see two maps. The one on the left was produced by those behind the project; the one on the right tells us who’s really behind it. But I’m not sure who produced the second.
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Admittedly, this was not a ‘Welsh Government’ policy . . . but I believe those involved had discussions with politicians and civil servants, and had been assured that Brexit could be the excuse used to withhold or ‘redirect’ farm subsidies.
Those involved were so confident of success, so arrogant, that they saw no need to engage with those whose land they wanted to appropriate. For it was a done deal.
Among the partners with Rewilding Britain was the Woodland Trust (WT). Here is Natalie Buttriss of the WT being interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today in October 2018. And she plays the admonishing memsahib for all she’s worth.
Summit to Sea met its Waterloo at a public meeting in Talybont, north of Aberystwyth on 31 July 2019, when locals made their feelings unmistakably clear to even the thick-skinned individuals involved.
Partners such as Ecodyfi and Rewilding Britain soon withdrew, and the project was then taken over by the RSPB. The organisation that cares so much for birds, but has no issue with bird-killing wind turbines. (I wonder how much that silence costs.)
The Woodland Trust is still taking over Welsh land to plant trees and profit from the carbon capture scam you read about earlier. But all done of course to save the planet.
Summit to Sea was an attempt by ‘environmentalists’ and ‘conservationists’ to grab Welsh farmland using the threat of subsidy withdrawal. So it’s no surprise to learn that many see the Sustainable Farming Scheme as Summit to Sea repackaged.
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LATE 2018: TIT-BITS
In September, Lesley Griffiths, Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs, was in Frisco, at a UN bunfight giving business leaders a chance to impress politicians from the sub-national level.
A month later the Daily Post produced this article in which farmers accused wildlife groups of lying about bio-diversity loss in order to grab farm funding. I include it because it introduces an important new tactic into the ‘Welsh Government’s war on farmers.
Hoping to hide the source of the attacks the Corruption Bay establishment was now funding wildlife trusts and other groups to do the dirty work. I wrote about this just last month, in Wildlife Trusts, Crazy Money, Hidden Agendas.
Quoted in the DP article was Katie-Jo Luxton of the RSPB:
Writing in today’s Daily Post, RSPB Cymru director Katie-jo Luxton said it was in farming’s interest to work with wildlife groups – and take what’s being offered.
Only by doing this can the industry justify its receipt of taxpayers’ money, she said. Otherwise the industry risks losing out in the post-Brexit scramble for public funding.
That sounds like dialogue from a very bad Mob movie! “Dis is da best deal ya gonna get, Louie, take it – if ya knows what’s good for ya!”
Also note, another reference to “taxpayers’ money“, and “the post-Brexit scramble for public funding“. They’re all reading from the same script.
Having pissed off many, many people, Luxton left the RSPB towards the end of 2021 and joined BirdLife International.
In four years between 2018 and 2022 BirdLife’s income shot up from £22 million to over £40 million. Another indicator of how governments and corporations are using wildlife groups and conservationists to undermine agriculture globally.
Wildlife trusts here saw their income more than double between 2019 and 2022. But income from ‘Welsh Government’ grants and contracts rocketed from £769,310 to £6,821,800 in the same period.
As might be expected, planting trees and making life even more difficult for farmers figured big in this mercifully short document.
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The reality is that despite all the grandstanding, no other country on this doomed planet has allowed OPDs, created the useless post of Future Generations Commission, or declared a climate emergency.
There’s a message there.
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2019 OCTOBER: ‘WALES MAY BE A SMALL NATION . . . ‘
Among the world-renowned climate experts attending was “ITV weather presenter Ruth Wignall“. Further down we read:
For every attendee at the conference a tree will also be planted in Mbale, Eastern Uganda, as part of the Welsh Government’s Wales for Africa programme.
Farmer Nimrod Wambette, from Mbale, will speak at the conference about how his home region is already feeling the impacts of climate change.
After enjoying an expenses-paid trip to Cardiff and a bit of pocket money Nimrod could be guaranteed to stick to the script.
It’s just more of the same, a rather sad and desperate combination of hyperbole and hysteria for which, in kinder and saner times, people would have received treatment. But what really caught my eye was this sentence:
Representatives from Extinction Rebellion will be attending to share some of their ideas about how we should be responding to the climate emergency
This new legislation is designed to increase the influence of ‘environmentalists’ and ‘conservationists’ over Welsh farming. How do I know? Because the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) takes credit for influencing it.
We launched and led a successful campaign to help put the climate and nature emergencies at the core of the new Agriculture (Wales) Bill. Through a survey of rural Wales, an open letter signed by more than 50 organisations, a petition and more, WWF Cymru’s Land of Our Future/Gwlad Ein Dyfodol campaign advocated for agroecology to be central to the bill
Those experts on Welsh farming, the British Mountaineering Council, signed the WWF petition . . . but our farming unions did not.
And so we come to the Sustainable Farming Scheme, for which ‘consultations’ end on Thursday. Though I suspect that, as with NVZ and other proposals, it’s a done deal.
To leave us in no doubt about Labour’s hatred for farmers Anna McMorrin, (former?) partner of Alun Davies, called hard-working Welsh farmers extremists, climate deniers, and conspiracy theorists in the House of Commons last week.
I could have introduced other examples of the ‘Welsh Government’s contempt, such as the refusal to do anything about bTB . . . other than to order the killing of cattle.
But I’ve given enough clues for you to guess how I see the big picture.
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Wildlife and environmental groups, and more recently the ‘Welsh Government’, tell us that 80/90% of Wales’s land is taken up by farming. There’s a reason for that.
By ‘farming’ they mean livestock farming. But it’s not really about farming, it’s about the land used by farming. The talk of farting cows, dirty rivers, biodiversity loss, etc, are the excuses used to destroy farming and to facilitate a land grab.
Land that’s wanted for carbon capture trees and rewilding. Which go together. Can’t have beavers without trees. And almost all the critters planned to be re-introduced are forest dwellers.
UPDATE 05.03.2024: I’ve been sent a pro forma letter that English ‘environmental’ groups have asked members and supporters to submit to the SFS consultation.
In the first line of the second paragraph: ” . . . upwards of 84% of land in Wales managed for farming”. It really chokes them, all this land – and they want it!
This also explains the involvement of vegans, and the backing for organic arable farming. Meat will be an imported luxury item that most of us will be unable to afford. (We’ll be offered insects, and factory-made ‘meat’.)
The countryside of the future will belong to an elite that will justify its advantages, and the restrictions placed on the rest of us, car-less in our 15-minute, constantly-surveiled cities, as being necessary to save the planet.
Having submitted to this cult-agenda, Labour politicians will destroy Welsh farming as we know it. And with it, a culture, a language, and a way of life.
This is a follow-up to last week’s piece on the enviro-shysters blaming farmers for everything wrong with our rivers, and those behind them hoping to get their corporate claws into farmland.
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MERGERS
First, let’s make sure you know where our five wildlife trusts are located. On the image below you can also see the difference in the sizes of the areas they cover.
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Given the other mergers that have taken place over the years it might be worth asking why Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire didn’t join with Breconshire to form a Powys trust? For until 2018 there was a Brecknockshire Wildlife Trust, but then it merged with the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.
What had been the Welsh umbrella outfit may even have joined the English body as a separate and individual trust. Certainly, that’s what the website seems to tell us.
When the end came for WTW, the funds were distributed to the five trusts, which makes sense. But I was surprised to see an inrush of grants in the final year.
Why was that, and why couldn’t the money have been given directly to the individual trusts? Finally, what the hell is a ‘Strategic Allocation Grant’?
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Anyway, that’s how we got to where we are now, Wales has five wildlife trusts. Also, Wildlife Trusts Wales, existing is some kind of limbo.
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WILD THINGS
Let’s stick with finances, which suggest to me that wildlife trusts have recently been ‘repurposed’. Let me try to explain . . .
There seem to be three main sources of income for wildlife trusts: One is donations or legacies, and a bequest of £1,000,000 in 2003 must have helped keep Brecknock afloat for a while.
The others sources are, either the Lottery (which is little more than disguised UK government funding), and grants and contracts from our ‘Welsh Government’. The table below might help.
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Amazing figures. While total income for the five trusts increased by 133% between 2019 and 2023, for the same period ‘Welsh Government’ funding went up by 760%.
In fact it was more. I didn’t include Radnorshire because I wasn’t sure how to express that increase as a percentage. Should it be 579,620%?
The big jumps in funding are clearly in Radnorshire and the north. In percentage terms Radnorshire really stands out. But why?
One reason may be that the local trust now has a farm, Pentwyn, which is planned to become ‘Wilder Pentwyn‘. The Trust is well-favoured in Corruption Bay, and gets visits from Minister for Rural Affairs Lesley Griffiths (and Gary?), helping her promote the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS).
The SFS demands that all Welsh farms give over 10% of their land for trees, and a further 10% for ‘wildlife habitat’. Farmers are, understandably, resisting. And things may be coming to the boil.
But it could get worse, for in its latest annual report the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust (RWT) demands that by 2030: ” . . . 30% of land and water in Radnorshire is managed in a way that creates extensive natural habitats for a wide variety of species”.
How will RWT achieve that target in just six years, considering it owns only one farm?
And how much input did RWT have to the Sustainable Farming Scheme?
Here’s an interesting group photograph. Unfortunately, I don’t have a date, but it can’t be that old. We’ll work left to right:
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Far left is Martin Wilkie, another environmentalist who’s come to tell us how to look after the country we’ve been looking after for over 2,000 years. Wilkie was with the RWT but has now branched out on his own with Wild Borders Ecology.
Next to him of course is Lesley Griffiths.
In the centre is James Hitchcock, RWT CEO.
To his right is Jenny Chryss, an investigative journalist. I’m told she broke with RWT when the Trust became, as my source put it, “corporate shills“. Chryss now fights Bute’s wind farm plans.
Far right is Rachel Sharp, CEO of Wildlife Trusts Wales (WTW). No friend of farmers, that one.
And talking of WTW, let’s not forget Tim Birch. A few years back he was virtually run out of Derbyshire for his extreme views . . . so he came to Wales, where he was welcomed with open arms by the ‘Welsh Government’.
These are the people deciding the future of rural Wales.
They don’t give a toss about us. For them our country is just one big experiment to see how many of their lunacies our idiot politicians will implement.
What we’ll see with Radnorshire Wildlife Trust at Pentwyn (and with others elsewhere), is that nature reserves will have a few sheep, a couple of cows, a rescued donkey for kiddies to pet – and they’ll be hailed as “the future of farming in Wales“.
In fact, that’s exactly what it says on the website: “A new model farm for the future“.
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I believe Radnorshire has been chosen by the ‘Welsh Government’ for a number of ‘initiatives’, and it’s been thrown open to all-comers.
For example, a source drew my attention to Protect Earth, a charity that’s applied for a grant to plant 14,000 trees at Goytre wood, near Knighton. No matter how it’s dressed up, this is just another carbon sequestration scam – and we’ll pay for it!
Rachel Sharp’s LinkedIn page confirms she’s still with WTW, and we know Tim Birch works with her. How many more work for this non-existent outfit?
Seeing as Sharp and Birch serve as the ‘Welsh Government’s attack dogs I’m beginning to wonder if WTW is now ‘in-house’, funded by Lesley Griffiths and her gang.
Here are three questions for The Wildlife Trusts Wales:
What is the legal status of Wildlife Trusts Wales?
Where does the money to run it come from?
Where can I examine the accounts?
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WHAT BORDER?
A few years back I was surprised to learn that the Shropshire Hills AONB might be extended into Wales. Here’s one reference from 2019. The article also suggests that the current AONB might be elevated to National Park status.
But if it were to cross the border, where would it go?
To help answer that question I’ve been busy on Photoshop. And when you fit the pieces together it makes a lot of sense, it even ties in with what I described earlier.
On the right in the diptych below we see a tourist map of Shropshire with the AONB shaded in darker green, in the south west. While on the left, I have fitted that map into the wildlife trusts map I used earlier.
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Any extension into Wales would affect both Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire, but more so the latter.
Which I’m sure would make Trust CEO James Hitchcock ecstatic. For he is on record as saying: “We’re in the Welsh Marches. The Marches is a mindset and a cultural identity. Nature does not heed boundaries.”
And let’s remember that before crossing the border Hitchcock was CEO of Herefordshire WT. Which presents a puzzle.
When Hitchcock left Herefordshire that trust was pulling down an average of £1.6m a year. By comparison, Radnorshire wasn’t scraping together a third of that. So it could be argued that Hitchcock took a step down when he started his new job 1 February 2021.
Two months after Hitchcock laid out his pens on the CEO’s desk Wildlife Trusts Wales decided to dissolve itself, with the individual trusts joining the English body. Is that just a coincidence?
No.
I believe Hitchcock was recruited to promote the ‘Welsh Government’s agenda. (Maybe a bigger agenda.) And this explains why he and the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust are feted by Lesley Griffiths and other denizens of the Bay.
Yes, I’m flying a kite by theorising on why Hitchcock came to Wales, but extending the Shropshire Hills AONB into Wales came from somewhere else. And it all ties in perfectly with the ‘Wilder Marches’ project.
But plans for new National Parks and AONBs do not end with a cross-border extension of the Shropshire Hills.
You must be aware of the decision to make the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB into Wales’s fourth National Park. Here are some details from Natural Resources Wales.
An argument I’ve heard used to justify the new NP is that the south east has one with Bannau Brycheiniog; the south west has the Pembrokeshire Coast; the north west, Eryri; so it’s only fair that the north east should also have a National Park.
But if the ‘geographical fairness’ argument has been accepted, then there’ll be just one area without a National Park – central Wales. And why not make it a cross-border National Park?
Co-operation, innit? ‘Hands across the Dyke’ an’ all that.
UPDATE: A comment to this blog reminds us that the area covered by the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust and it’s Montgomeryshire neighbour is almost the same as the area of Severn Trent Water.
Given that environmental groups and river ‘saviours’ in other parts of Wales have been used (and funded) to blame farmers, in order to cover up for Dŵr Cymru’s spillages and other misdemeanours, might that also be happening in Powys?
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CONCLUSION
There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with National Parks, AONBs, wildlife trusts and nature reserves. But they’re no longer just about protecting landscapes, nurturing flora and fauna. They have been politicised, and funded, to serve other agendas.
She brings Brexit into a truly weird conspiracy theory. Most absurdly she seems to believe that putting our farmers out of business somehow guarantees food security. What do these people have between their ears?
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And what “nature catastrophe“? Things have never been better. Hasn’t she heard that ospreys are nesting on the farm her government bought for £4.25m?
Though we won’t know if they’re coming back, or not, until Vaughan Gething is safely installed as the new Labour leader. Phew!
But they were definitely there last year, oh yes . . . even though nobody saw them. And no photos or videos have emerged.
By “food security” what Rathbone means is an endless supply of free range radishes from the OPD that daddy bought for Guy and Clarissa.
She sits on the Senedd’s Climate Change Environment and Rural Affairs Committee. Her partner, John Uden, was given a no-show job by Bute Energy, the Scottish company wanting to throw up a few dozen wind farms in Wales.
How the other half lives, eh!
I was directed to another Saturday posting on X, this one from Jeremy Clarkson.
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Other people have the same problem, Jeremy. And the explanation is that the ‘Welsh Government’ tells porkies.
Lesley Griffiths, Julie James, Jenny Rathbone et al say they’re saving the planet, fighting a “climate catastrophe“, but in reality they’re forcing farmers out of business so that big corporations can buy the land, and make yet more money, from carbon sequestration, wind farms, and other scams.
With ‘environmentalists’ disguising this land grab and hoping to be rewarded with vast acreages for rewilding and other anti-human activities.
‘Safety’ was just the pretty wrapping – it is ultimately about taking away our cars, and keeping us penned in 15-minute ghettos.
Environmentalism and restoring biodiversity are also pretty wrapping for something more sinister. And it’s not just farmers under attack.
The ‘Welsh Government’ is implementing the Globalists’ de-growth agenda. And among other targets this agenda wants to destroy traditional farming and food production because if they can control the food supply, then the Globalists will control the world.
Don’t let it happen. The farmers’ fight is your fight. Stand with the farmers!
This week’s piece links Globalist corporations, environmental groups, and politicians. What unites this unsavoury trio is their shared desire to destroy livestock farming.
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THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN
Last week there was a court case brought by the charity River Action UK against the Environment Agency (EA) for not dealing with the problem of chicken manure pollution on the river Wye. Even though the EA is responsible for England, the High Court case was heard in Cardiff.
Which encouraged a bunch of exhibitionists to turn up and piss people off with their ‘street theatre’. Even Morris dancing! Here’s the report from Llais y Sais last Thursday.
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As you can read, the article itself reported: “A large amount of organic manure has been spread over the area . . .”
Yet it also reported: “River Action insists a loophole in the law is allowing poultry farming to poison the Wye“.
The first quote makes clear the problem is caused by arable farms using chicken manure as organic fertiliser. Yet River Action UK chooses to blame chicken farms.
Of course, most of these arable farms are on the English side of the border, which makes the nonsense in Cardiff last week even more misplaced.
But why would River Action want to blame chicken farmers when they know the run-offs causing the pollution are coming from arable farms? Stick with me and I’ll explain.
First, let’s see what we can learn about River Action UK.
Though new, it’s expanding, and the most recently filed accounts, for year ending 31.03.2023, showed a healthy income of £485,398 (previous year, £278,080), ‘Cash at bank and in hand’ £249,786 (£48,202), and three employees (none).
That’s quite impressive. So who’s running this outfit?
Well, according to the website, there is a veritable host involved, none of whom seem to be Welsh. Unless we include a Vietnamese woman named Bic Jones, who is said to live in that mythic realm, ‘North Wales’.
Among the others listed I see Jeremy Wade, who is often on the telly, filmed in exotic locales wrassling with big ugly fish.
And of course George Monbiot is there, his icon-like countenance staring back at us planet-destroying sinners.
But we’re going to focus on James Edward MacPherson, who’s bio we find to the right of Wade’s.
Because according to the Charity Commission, MacPherson was the first trustee to be registered, which gives him a kind of founder status, I suppose. So why isn’t he playing a more prominent role in River Action?
Or to put it another way, why was he the founding trustee? Come to that, who is he?
At the foot of MacPherson’s Linkedin profile we see a kind of ‘Jimmy loves Larry’.
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However you look at it, that’s an impressive CV. But it also suggests MacPherson sees the great outdoors as an investment opportunity.
At the time he became founder-trustee of River Action UK MacPherson was a director of The Investor Forum. And if you want to know the meaning of ‘vacuous’, then just turn to ‘What we do‘.
It seems to be a collection of commercial entities burnishing their environmental credentials by investing in Green stuff. MacPherson ceased to be a director just two weeks after becoming the original trustee of River Action UK.
The Rathbones are a wealthy Liverpool family, and family members still get their cut from associated companies. And that includes Jenny Rathbone MS.
She sits on the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee. Her partner, John Uden, was given a no-show job by Bute Energy, the Scottish company wanting to throw up a few dozen wind farms in Wales.
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WHO’S WHO: CHARLES BASIL LUCAS WATSON
Described as “founder and chair” is Charles Watson, who you can see in the mercifully short video below. Charles also has an interesting background in the world of business, which we’ll look at in a mo’.
Also in the video is Nicola Cutcher, who made the Rivercide video with Monbiot. Which is of course about the Wye. Delivered with the balance that so delights Monbiot’s fans.
I’m sure that most appearing on the website have only a tenuous connection with River Action. So what do the filings with the Charity Commission tell us?
As we can see above, the trustees other than MacPherson, are: Charles Basil Lucas Watson, who we just saw in the video, and Marina Gibson, who appears on the Advisory Board next to fish-wrassler Jeremy Wade.
Like MacPherson, Watson has a fascinating business background. According to Companies House these are the companies he’s been involved with. Though I can only see one active company where he’s still on board.
The third company that Watson left, in May 2020, is Blue Rubicon (Holdings) Ltd. Another part of the Teneo setup. Specialising in ‘PR and Communications’.
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Most of the companies Watson has been involved with have had a US presence on the board. Sometimes more than one American director.
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WHO’S WHO: MARINA GIBSON
Ms Gibson is the third of the trustees named on the filings with the Charity Commission. Here’s her Linkedin profile.
And here’s a clip from the River Action website.
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Seeing as Marina Gibson knows her fish, and was taken on as trustee a year after MacPherson and Watson, I guess she was recruited to give River Action some credibility.
Her Linkedin profile says she is a ‘brand ambassador’ for YETI, a big company making ‘outdoor’ stuff. So it would make sense to team up with Marina Gibson. And yet . . .
YETI came knocking at the very time Gibson joined River Action, which was at the beginning of 2021. And YETI is another big US company, headquartered in Austin, Texas. But it does have a UK presence, registered with Companies House.
And YETI UK must be doing something right, because turnover leapt from £901,389 at the end of December 2019 to £18,712,613 31 December 2022.
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WHO’S WHO: THE LOST BEATLE
According to this River Action website article, from two days before Christmas 2021, another trustee was to have been James Wallace. Instead, he became CEO.
Now I can’t tell you much about Wallace except that he’s keen on rewilding, especially re-introducing beavers. His bio on the River Action website makes him sound like Indiana Attenborough:
James is Chief Executive of River Action. He is a naturalist, archaeologist and social entrepreneur and has established enterprises ranging from renewable energy, regenerative agriculture and green finance to ecotourism, nature restoration and deep sea exploration. Prior to helping Charles Watson develop River Action into a national charity, James was CEO and Co-founder of Beaver Trust where he led the coalition to protect and live alongside native beavers.
In the filings with the Charity Commission I noticed a mention of the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust. So I wondered what it was about.
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Looking at the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust accounts two possibilities present themselves. (Highlighted in green.) First, the Trust is being paid to host a ‘beaver project officer’, and we know that River Action CEO James Wallace is into beavers.
Another possibility is that the payments were connected with a ‘Save the Wye’ petition put out by the Trust. Which, of course, targets chicken farmers.
But if so, why couldn’t River Action have put out that petition itself?
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Talking of money, and as you can see from the panel above, Radnorshire Wildlife Trust received £1,862,146 in y/e 31.03.2023, and its property portfolio qualifies for farming grants and funding from just about everywhere.
By my calculations, in y/e 31.03.2023, Radnorshire Wildlife Trust received £666,103 from ‘Welsh Government’ sources alone. (Highlighted in pink.) Here’s one example.
That’s the state of Wales in 2024. Those who’ve farmed the land for centuries are being driven off, while environmentalists and investors are showered with money to take over the cleared land.
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THE GREEN MONSTER DEVOURING WALES
In case you haven’t already guessed, I’ll spell out for you why (and despite evidence to the contrary) River Action UK chose to blame chicken farmers for the pollution in the Wye.
In 1971 the Club of Rome issued an apocalyptic vision of the future dreamed up by a few scientists using ‘models’ from primitive computers. In 1991 the ‘threat’ was re-framed to replace the collapsed Soviet Union.
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Globalists have used that ‘threat’ to bend politicians and populations to their will. Corporations like BlackRock, Vanguard and the rest, want to take over farmland in order to capitalise on that scam.
The land can be used in a number of ways; such as planting trees to grab the carbon offset and other grants they’ve fooled politicians into offering; or putting up wind farms and solar farms, then raking in the exorbitant profits from these unreliable forms of electricity generation.
Here is Wales we see the problem manifest itself in many ways, and in many different places. In Carmarthenshire, a company called Foresight is buying up farms to plant trees.
So unless we believe in Damascene conversions it’s obvious to me that River Action is just another environmental group fronting for Globalist investors seeking to undermine livestock farming in order to grab the land.
The same applies to many other bodies. In Wales we have a constantly growing number of ecological and river groups funded by the ‘Welsh Government’ and other bodies for no reason other than to tell lies about farmers.
And it has to be livestock farming rather than arable farming (for now), because the Globalists have been clever in recruiting vegans.
A few years ago vegans were cranks that nobody paid much attention to, but now fanatical vegans are found leading the fight against livestock farming – and it has nothing to do with pollution, or the loss of biodiversity.
This is why Wales is especially at risk.
Earlier we read that the first trustee of River Action, James Edward MacPherson, works for the giant US bank and investment house J P Morgan.
Last year top man of J P Morgan, Jamie Dimon, came straight out and said private property should be confiscated in order to meet the net zero targets he and the other Globalists had set!
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And he wasn’t talking about Auntie Megan’s back garden.
Outfits like the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust know the score; they accept that the major landowners in a post-farming world will be Globalist corporations, even governments, but these will – they believe – allow window dressing in the form of rewilding and other fantasies.
That’s the deal they’ve struck.
But what of the politicians?
If the politicians we suffer in Wales have genuinely fallen for the Globalists’ climate / net zero scam, then they’re too stupid to hold public office.
If they know it’s a scam but still push on with it because they’re too weak to resist those directing them, then they deserve nothing but contempt.
But if they enjoy the power enforcing the scam gives them over people fighting for their livelihoods and their way of life, then they are, “lower than vermin”.
This post, the last before Christmas, deals with a ‘consultation process’ that could result in changes being implemented that will prove very damaging to Welsh communities.
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PANELS, REPORTS, RECOMMENDATIONS
You may remember that some six years ago I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the ‘Welsh Government’ asking how many homelessness organisations there were in Wales. The answer I got was 48.
It may be more by now. It will certainly be more in the future if the desired changes are made to the legislation relating to homelessness.
Let’s begin in June 2019 with the ‘Welsh Government’ setting up a Homelessness Action Group “to recommend the steps needed to end homelessness in Wales“.
Let’s return to the Homelessness Action Group. Its report is heavy on recommendations but nowhere could I find the names of those who sit on the group. Nor was it signed off by the chair or secretary.
I eventually found the names of the group members on the website of an organisation called Crisis, the driving force behind the whole exercise. An English outfit that’s done what so many do by renting a cupboard in Cardiff and pretending to be Welsh.
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When I saw the name Jon Sparkes my soul soared, for I hoped it might be a misspelling, and a reference to that great observer of Welsh life who gave us Hugh Pugh, Shadwell, Old Mr Fffffet al; but no, for it was definitely Jon, not John.
Jon Sparkes OBE has moved on from Crisis to become CEO of UNICEF UK.
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Before considering the outcomes of these deliberations and their possible consequences, I want to mention a third assemblage of the wise and the caring. This is the Expert Review Panel, or Legal Reform Panel, announced by Julie James 30 March 2022.
The Expert Review Panel reported to James, Minister for Climate Change, in October. Here’s the report. It was delivered to Chez James because she was the Minister for Housing and Local Government who set up the original Homelessness Action Group back in 2019.
Apart from three local authority representatives I don’t see much Welsh representation. It’s the usual melange of third sector chisellers and memsahibs living high on the hog of public funding. (Though don’t get me wrong! – I’m sure they’re all vegans.)
Cardiff University and the Labour party (virtually one and the same nowadays) are also in the mix.
And again, Crisis seems to be playing the leading role in this farce.
CHC is controlled by the ‘Welsh Government’. Which means that someone who moved from Bristol last year, a woman who knows sod all about Wales, has landed a cushy, well-paid (and almost certainly unnecessary) job, in Corruption Bay.
That’s modern Wales in a nutshell.
On page 88 of the report we read that some on the panel – you can guess who! – wanted to create a new post of Housing / Homelessness Regulator.
I often lie awake at night wondering how we manage without a Housing / Homelessness Regulator, on £100,000 a year. Of course we’d need a Deputy Regulator. And perhaps an Assistant Regulator.
With a staff of 50 . . . until the new department finds its feet and expands.
As you flick through it you’ll see that it’s laid out in chapters, each one concluding with ‘Consultation questions’.
A number of highlighted ‘proposal’ sections are designed to catch the eye. Here’s a selection, together with my comments:
The first will put you in the mood for the unhinged ramblings that follow. And it would be impossible to surpass this example of what German academics call Bollockssprecht.
“ . . . the local housing authority should be obliged to ask an applicant from the Gypsy, Roma and Travelling Community whether or not they are culturally averse to bricks and mortar“.
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If they are not “culturally averse“, and they take a Welsh home, does that mean they no longer qualify as members of the, “Gypsy, Roma and Travelling Community” – and can they expect to be evicted?
Come to that, why would anyone from those communities be applying for a home of the hated “bricks and mortar” variety in the first place?
Who could write that bollocks and keep a straight face? But if it was written with a straight face then the poor soul who wrote it needs help.
I’m getting a headache just thinking about it, so let’s move on.
Next up, ‘Intentionality’. A clumsy-looking word that refers to persons making themselves deliberately homeless.
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In practice, changes here could result in someone giving up a secure tenancy in Yorkshire – thereby making themselves intentionally homeless – and then being able to demand housing in Pembrokeshire.
It is a very, very bad idea.
One of the current safeguards against abuse of the system is the ‘local connection’ rule, which says you must have lived in an area for at least six months to qualify for social housing. The qualification period is far too short, but it’s something.
Yet some regard it as asking too much.
This passage from the consultation document exposes the split between third sector chisellers and local authorities. The second paragraph makes clear that the push to drop the local connection rule entirely came from the English cupboard-dwellers in Crisis.
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An existing way of getting around the local qualification rule has been to claim a family connection with the area. I’ve seen this operate.
Someone with no local connection gets housed after claiming some exceptional status, and before you know it, the extended family has moved to the area through being able to claim a ‘familial connection’.
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This proposal seems to suggest keeping the already inadequate ‘familial ties’ rule, but watering it down to where it would be meaningless.
The paragraphs above suggest removing the local connection rule altogether; but something else I’ve lifted, and you can see below, suggests achieving the same objective by a series of changes rather than in one fell swoop.
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I would guess that the reference to “Prison leavers” refers to the massive new prison in Wrecsam, HMP Berwyn, where most of the prisoners are from England. Think how that might work out.
There are clearly three main ‘targets’ where change is sought by the chisellers heretofore mentioned.
Local connection and intentionality we’ve looked at, which leaves access to public funds. The situation at present is that persons subject to immigration control cannot claim public funds unless an exception applies.
A footnote to page 93 reads: “The Welsh Government have (sic) recently launched a supplementary Migrant Victim of Abuse Support Fund, which will be piloted for a year by BAWSO. We intend to use the learning from this pilot, together with the evaluation of the Home Office’s Support for Migrant Victims Scheme to shape the design of longer-term support to meet the needs of migrant victims in Wales.”
BAWSO is an organisation catering for women of colour. It has received vast amounts of funding over the years – over £3m in ‘Welsh Government’ grants and contracts in the twelve months ending 31.03.2022 – and is now a major property owner. Its founder, Mutale Merrill, also has a nice property portfolio of her own.
Though the original, Homelessness Action Group, set up in 2019, in its report recommended, in the section headed ‘Ending Migrant Homelessness’ (page 26), “Providing guidance to local authorities, clearly setting out the duties owed to migrant households with no recourse to public funds.”
I suspect that the ‘Welsh Government’ and its third sector cronies are trying to circumvent as much as they can the UK immigration control legislation.
Let’s be clear: Any attempts to weaken or remove the existing requirements can only mean that the intention is to commandeer Welsh housing for people with no connection to Wales. This can only be done at the expense of Welsh people hoping for a home in their own country.
What we see here is a struggle between three different interests.
First, we have NGO shysters with no commitment to Wales or the Welsh people, concerned only with groups they’ve decided are ‘marginalised’, assorted ishoos, and themselves. These charlatans would flood Wales with ‘homeless’ and others from God knows where in order to increase their funding and their political clout.
Next, we have Welsh local authorities who are in the front line and can see the dangers from further relaxing regulations that are already too lax.
Finally, we have the ‘Welsh Government’, which invariably succumbs to Left-Woke pressure, but doesn’t want to risk alienating local councils too much, virtually all of which are run by Labour or its partner Plaid Cymru.
Though another factor in play with the ‘Welsh Government’ is virtue signalling on the world stage. For Corruption Bay loves to crow about measures it hopes might win plaudits from elsewhere.
We’ve already seen it with One Planet Developments, which has even been noticed by the World Economic Forum.
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Then there was the Well-being of Future Generation Act, and the boast that, “The Act is unique to Wales attracting interest from countries across the world“.
But no other country has copied Wales’ lead. Revealing, that!
This is no way to run a country; standing on a stage, ignoring your own people to shout over their heads in the hope of attracting the attention of others who really don’t give a fuck what you get up to.
There’s something sad about it. Like a neglected or insecure child desperately seeking the attention and the approval of the adults in the room.
To satisfy these pathetic ambitions the ‘Welsh Government’ might implement the dangerous suggestions of organisations flooding into Wales because they view our country as more ‘receptive’ to their ideas, more ‘manageable’ than England.
I believe a majority of the Welsh public has run out of patience with the virtue-signalling clowns in Corruption Bay.
And increasingly, the politicians there realise it. This explains Drakeford’s departure. Either he realised his time was up, or his colleagues knew he had to go for them to have any chance of saving themselves.
Let’s keep up the pressure.
Make them realise we’ve had enough of grifters living off the Welsh public purse. Enough of perverts being allowed into schools. Enough of the ‘Saving the planet’ bullshit that encourages the exploitation of Wales. Enough of pandering to imaginary or contrived ‘minorities’. Enough of the war on farmers. Enough of the subservience to the Globalists’ anti-human agenda.
They can make a start by rejecting any and all suggestions to weaken the already inadequate rules on who qualifies for housing and other assistance in Wales.
Do that by telling Crisis where they can stick their agenda. And instead, remember our people, who are not “culturally averse to bricks and mortar“.
In this piece I shall look at what might be a renewed attempt to promote OPDs, or perhaps it’s just another bit of ‘affordable housing’ flim-flam. Maybe a bit of both.
For newcomers . . . the OPD system is unique to Wales; it allows people to build a dwelling in open country as long as they promise to worship the sun, name their sprogs Earthworm and Beelzebub, and grow a couple of carrots to prove they’re ‘farmers’.
I’ve written about OPDs many times. Just type ‘OPD’ in the search bar.
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GARRISON OPD
Three years ago I introduced Garrison Farm CIC, you’ll find it in this post, scroll down to the relevant section. The two principals were Ross Edwards and Chris Carree. Carree left the company in June 2021 but Edwards is still there.
I assume Garrison Farm is still a going concern because three new directors have joined since Carree left. Let’s look at them in the order they joined.
Finally, we have Michael Paul Smith, 05.08.2023, who is Senior Facilities and Project Officer for Swansea council, and has worked for the council for over 20 years. Swansea council contributing?
The plan is to set up – possibly in Swansea, or maybe Carmarthenshire – a kind of OPD community for former military personnel. That’s the impression I get in this video from February last year. (Watch from 38:00.)
Thorpe was clearly recovering from a stroke, which he attributed to ‘climate anxiety’.
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Thorpe has crossed my path a few times over the years as I’ve researched OPDs. And the idea of a community of OPDs is not new. As this tweet of Thorpe’s from January 2018 makes clear.
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Though I don’t know what project was being discussed, or even if there was a specific project mooted. So much OPD discussion is little more than pipedreams.
But to return to Swansea, where there was certainly a project launched that could plausibly be called a community. This was Killan-Fach Eco-farm on the Gower side of the city. (Marginally more attractive than the Port Talbot side.)
I wrote about it in June 2020 in One Planet Developments, just scroll down to the section ‘Farmlets’.
The council knocked it back for a number of reasons. One being that . . .
There is also no evidence of how the development would meet local affordable housing needs
Which tells me that ‘affordable housing’ was one of the angles used in the hope of getting planning consent for an OPD project. This is interesting, because you’ll be reading more about affordable housing, and ‘co-operative social housing’, in a minute.
But before that it might be worth focusing on Ross Edwards a little.
From his Linkedin profile we learn that since January this year he’s been Business Development Manager for Rouute. Here’s the website. It describes its product as a, “road-based energy harvesting system“.
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If I understand it . . . pads or sensors are placed on the road surface and vehicles driving over them generate electricity. Even if it works, we’re unlikely to see this technology in Wales because we’re heading towards a vehicle-free future.
There’s another military connection here at Rouute. For CEO is Antony Edmondson-Bennett, a former army officer who, according to his now disappeared Linkedin bio, is trained in ‘close protection’. (It was there last week when I was researching this.)
The Rouute website announces a link-up with a firm called Carma. Here’s a very short video starring the founder of Carma, Jim Holland.
I found the Carma website easily enough, but there is no company of that name registered with Companies House. It was only by scrolling down to the small print at the bottom that I found, “Carma is a trading name of Rewards.Earth LTD 13315107“.
So let’s see what else we can learn.
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‘I THINK THAT I SHALL NEVER SEE . . . ‘.
The arrangement between the two, as spoken by Jim Holland of Carma, is that . . .
Rouute Technologies Ltd will be planting trees for every single unit they sell in the UK or abroad.
On the ‘Meet the Team‘ page of the website we see: “Our target is to plant tens of millions of trees in the next five years“. That is some ambition!
Rooting around for more information I naturally looked up Holland’s Linkedin page, where we see that he was in the Royal Navy for 13 years. So another military connection.
In this rooting around ‘South Wales’ appeared more than once.
This March, ten members of the Tillo team will be making their way to South Wales for a day of tree planting in partnership with Carma.
Despite the nonsense about saving the planet, what we’re looking at here is greenwash; and it must be bracketed with outfits like Stump Up For Trees, and investment vehicles like Foresight, buying up Welsh farms.
Too much of Wales is being lost in this way. We don’t need any more of it.
Drakeford was responding to a completely unrehearsed and piercing question from Huw Irranca-Davies MS. Here’s the transcript.
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Seeing ‘Mike Hedges’ and ‘fascinating’ in the same sentence is quite hilarious.
But here’s where I want to focus, on this section referencing “co-operative social housing managed and owned by the people who live in them“:
And the good news is, Llywydd, that we have a new wave of initiatives being led in different parts of Wales: the Solva community land trust, the Gower community land trust, the Taf Fechan Housing Co-operative in Merthyr—all of them initiatives designed to develop housing that will be run and managed by the people who live in them.
In his ‘question’ Irranca-Davies makes reference to “international youth leaders” in attendance, though God knows why anyone would travel to listen to those clowns. Let alone travel any distance.
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THE EXAMPLES DRAKEFORD QUOTED
Drakeford mentioned three examples of co-operative social housing. These were, to quote him verbatim: “the Solva community land trust, the Gower community land trust, the Taf Fechan Housing Co-operative in Merthyr”.
Let’s look at them, working backwards.
Taf Fechan looks like an offshoot of housing association Merthyr Valley Homes. I guess it takes over or runs MVH properties. If so, then it’s not a group of locals coming together afresh to build and manage their own community.
Now let’s turn to Solfa.
The Solva Community Land Trust was launched under the direction of, or with the help of, Planed in September 2019. “Planed delivers sustainable outcomes for communities by a collaborative, people-led approach“.
But I’m not sure what if anything’s happened since.
An internet search turned up this from March this year, which suggests the properties are still not built.
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The third project mentioned by Drakeford was in Gower. And I assume he was referring to Gŵyr Community Land Trust. Here’s the website.
Though it’s registered with Companies House as Gower Land Trust CIC, launched May 2021. And with just a few hundred in the piggy-bank it’s also difficult to see where this is going without a major injection of funding.
But it seems to have a rival in the Gwyr Community Land Trust Ltd, launched August 2023. This is a one-man band run by a local, Roger Brace.
I mention that Roger Brace is local because, looking at those involved in Gŵyr Community Land Trust, I see that a number of them are newcomers to Wales.
Director Adam Jefferson Land was not long ago pushing a similar venture over in Devon. (Fellow-director Niaomh Convery came to Swansea with him.) Another of the three directors, Emily Robertson, came to Wales a few years ago after working for Solace Women’s Aid in London.
Going by the bios and other evidence, this crew is sure to appeal to ‘progressive’ politicians. An impression strengthened by the image used in this WalesOnline report in November 2021.
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THE BIT AT THE END WHERE I PULL IT ALL TOGETHER
OPDs, as originally conceived, never really took off. While throwing up a shack in the countryside might appeal to many, needing to prove that you were living a largely self-sufficient lifestyle seems to have put many off the idea.
To make things worse, the idea was highjacked by unscrupulous, often unsavoury individuals and groups, buying land, often tracts of forestry, then selling or renting plots for people to put up cabins or bring in mobile homes.
The examples below are from Llangynog, Carmarthenshire, and they were sent to me a couple of years back. They’re not OPDs, and they don’t have planning permission.
But those who live in them will employ the OPD defence against council planners.
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I’m not suggesting that Wade William Heames is either unscrupulous or unsavoury, but his Edible Forest projects have come in for a lot of criticism. Much of it from people who’d been tempted to buy in, or even had bought in.
Which brings me back to Ross Edwards and Garrison Farm. I might accept this project if it was home to Welsh ex-service personnel. But if it’s nothing more than a smokescreen for greenwashing, then I would object.
The video you saw earlier, starring Ross Edwards and David Thorpe was produced by Cwmpas. (Formerly, Wales Co-operative Development & Training Centre Ltd.)
Income of £6.5m from “‘Welsh Government’, European funding, other grants and sources of income“. With two-thirds of that income going on the 100 staff.
And I bet you’d never heard of Cwmpas until you read this. How many more such beasties are out there, lurking in the shadows, devouring unwary maidens and feasting on public funds?
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You’ll see that the Cwmpas accounts were signed off by the then secretary, D Walker. Now Derek Walker – for it is he! – is the Future Generations Commissioner. Does he plan to breathe new life into OPDs in his new role?
Whatever Walker may have planned, Drakeford was talking about more conventional housing. But to understand why we are where we are, you need some background information.
It was always my belief that the left wing administration in Corruption Bay wanted rented housing to be the sole preserve of housing associations . . . with these in turn funded and controlled from the Bay.
But the close relationship that developed led the ONS to decide that Welsh housing associations were, effectively, public bodies. This resulted in them being privatised. Explained here from a ‘Welsh Government’ perspective.
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Welsh housing associations are now building many fewer homes for rent. Some are building none at all. They, and their subsidiaries, are focused almost exclusively on private, open market housing.
This helps explain why some councils are trying to make up the shortfall.
Finally, and especially in rural areas, we have the issue of holiday homes, also retirees and others buying property and moving in permanently.
So . . . fewer housing association properties for rent; private landlords quitting the business; councils spending money they may not have trying to fill the gap; politicians tickling rather than tackling the rural housing crisis; to a backdrop of recession, a ‘de-growth’ agenda, and increasing economic hardship enforced by following the lunacies of Net Zero.
There could be a perfect storm approaching . . . and this storm will have bugger all to do with any imaginary ‘climate crisis’.
Which is why I would hope to see official support for local people getting together to help themselves. But the examples quoted by Drakeford do not inspire confidence.
One thing for sure – a government making major expenditure cuts, and councils that are also feeling the pinch, should not be funding good-lifers hoping to settle in scenically attractive areas with which they have only the most tenuous connection.
The only real solution is a comprehensive and national housing strategy. But it would need joined-up thinking and hard work – from a ‘Welsh Government’ that prefers soundbites and virtue signalling!
This is another ‘quickie’, which I’m putting out partly so people can be aware of what might be in the pipeline, and also to see if anyone out there can add a little meat to the bones.
