The old adage says: ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’. Referring to family connections, the old school tie, Freemasonry or some other means of getting preferential treatment, especially when it comes to landing a contract, getting a job, or gaining promotion.

It’s just as true today, but the mechanism for preferential treatment has changed. Certainly in Wales. For what’s been added is believing in, or at least going along with, Woke thinking and Globalist dogma.

The sad, twisted mindset that pervades Welsh public life, and would see some people campaigning on behalf of cancer cells if Elon Musk discovered a cure for cancer.

For we are dealing here with zealots. Some of them truly fanatical.

In this piece I’m going to look at a specific funding pot run by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ in order to explain what I mean.

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YNNI CYMRU GRANTS

Ynni Cymru (Welsh Energy) was set up by the previous Labour administration. It gives out grants of up to £999,999 for Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES) through Local Partnerships.

Bureaucracy, eh! Layer upon layer; where would we be without it?

It’s pretty obvious that Ynni Cymru was set up by the Corruption Bay establishment to counter criticism that all the money from ‘renewables’ leaves Wales with no benefits whatsoever for us.

Ynni Cymru was the start. Soon followed by Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru (owned by WG), and last month, a call for a state-owned energy investment company.

Too little, too late. And anything run by Labour or Plaid Cymru is doomed to fail.

There doesn’t seem to be a website for Ynni Cymru. Which might make it difficult for those out of the loop to know about the money on offer.

Ynni Cymru should not be confused with Ynni Cymunedol Cymru, where former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood is secretary (cos she got lots of pencils).

There’s not a great deal of money involved with Ynni Cymru grants, £8.27m in total for 2026/27. But it’s the recipients I want to look at. Asking who they are, why they got their funding, and wondering whether it was justified.

Here’s a list of the grant recipients (scroll up for 26/27), with the amounts received. Let’s look at some of the big awards.

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RENEWABLE POWER PEMBROKESHIRE LTD £997,556

The first thing to say is that this lot used to be known as Gower Power Energy Co-operative Ltd. One of a nest of companies set up by eco-grifters who’ve settled on the western outskirts of Swansea. Gower Power always filed as dormant.

Obviously, it’s easier to take over an existing entity than to start a new one; but here it might suggest a connection, even a continuation under a different name.

Whatever, the directors of the new or renamed company are Peter Roger Davies, Jane Nerys O’Brien, Felix Merry, Brian Mark, and Ena Lloyd.

Davies and O’Brien are also directors of Community Energy in Pembrokeshire CIC. In fact, Davies is involved with many other outfits. A few of which have hit the wall. Hard.

Though I also see some old favourites Davies links with: Size of Wales (which plants trees in Africa), WCVA (a conduit for WG funding), Community Foundation Wales, Social Investment (Cymru) Ltd (run by the WCVA), and The Institute of Welsh Affairs. For nine years Peter Davies worked for Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water.

We can safely assume that Davies is well connected in Corruption Bay.

Felix Merry is a project manager for RES Energy Services Ltd. For eight years before that he worked for Natural Resources Wales, run by the ‘Welsh Government’.

Brian Mark “lives off-grid in Llandudoch“, and is involved with Grannell Community Energy Ltd, as is Jane O’Brien. Grannell has a wind turbine near Lampeter.

The only Ena Lloyd I can find works for Cynon Taf Community Housing Group.

Renewable Power Pembrokeshire is not an organic community group made up of local people coming together. It is led by those who ‘know people’.

Which will always help when it comes to getting funding.

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LLANIDLOES DISTRICT ENERGY LOCAL CLUB LTD £941,280

It was formed just over two years ago. And before this Ynni Cymru grant it seemed to have assets of just £6. (Click on link and scroll down to blue sheets.)

So who’s running this show? Well, the names given on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) filings are: Neil Statham, Lisa Stead, Tim Ware, and Duncan Burwood.

The only Neil Statham I can find was a director with the Association for Environment Conscious Building in Huddersfield. The year of birth tallies, so I guess it’s him. He might have lived in Wales for a couple of years.

Lisa Stead seems to run a holiday business, and busies herself with the local Scouts.

Google AI says Tim Ware is “ . . . a self-described handyman, gardener, and wood and metal craftsman“.

As for Duncan Burwood; he is Dr Duncan Frederick Strathdee Burwood, who was until earlier this month a director and trustee of Llanidloes Energy Solutions Ltd. Which after 20 years in existence doesn’t seem to have done much. If anything.

I’m not sure I see any genuine locals there, nor do I see much experience in ‘renewables’. Why were they given just shy of a million smackeroos?

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YNNI BRO RHIAN CYFYNGEDIG £881,654

When I saw ‘Rhian’, I guessed we were going to Llanrhian, in north Pembrokeshire, where Meibion Glyndŵr made their debut in December 1979. This is another new company or, to be exact, a Community Benefit Society. With three directors: Huw Morris, Robert Laddle, and Neil Prior.

In the FCA entry we read:

The Society is a community renewable energy company, with aspirations to become a generator of green energy and leading on other renewable energy projects.

Ah! aspirations.

Huw Morris is Welsh, but I don’t think he’s local. I say that because his Linkedin page tells us he was educated at Aberdare Boy’s Grammar School. And I think he lives in Swansea, where he runs his ‘Higher Education Consultancy’.

Robert Laddle has been involved with many other companies, quite a few with Welsh names. (Though I think ‘Penberth’ is in Cornwall.) And I’m certain he lives in England. Maybe he has a holiday home in north Pembs?

Now we come to the star of the Llanrhian show in Neil Prior who, as chair of the community council, and a county councillor to boot, must surely be local. A busy boy, our Neil, and obviously well connected.

His Linkedin profile reads:

Your mush has to fit to be appointed to a health board, while Codi is the biggest housing association in Wales following the merger of Linc Cymru with Pobl. Telling me that Neil Prior is another who’d know his way around the Bay.

Which means that in Ynni Bro Rhian we have another new entity with no track record, just “aspirations” – and £883k to play with!

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RHONDDA CYNON TAF COUNTY BOROUGH COUNCIL £695,888

RCT council is of course controlled by Labour, and these grants were presumably awarded before the May elections, when Labour lost power in the Bay. It seems five projects across RCT and Merthyr received £1.37m.

• Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council, Rhondda Cynon Taf – local authority project at Ysgol Nantgwyn supporting education and community energy. £695,588.
• A Strings Limited, Treforest – specialist retail business. £40,065.
• Cambrian Village Trust Ltd, Clydach Vale – community organisation supporting local people and activities. £169,020.
• The Merthyr Tydfil Institute For The Blind, – charity and employer supporting disabled and visually impaired people. £388,840.
• Business in Focus Limited, Dowlais – social enterprise supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs. £81,344.

I can’t find details for the first project beyond the vague: “project at Ysgol Nantgwyn supporting education and community energy“.

The last-named is yet another ‘social enterprise’. And looking none too healthy according to the accounts. With the Confirmation Statement overdue with Companies House.

Wales is weighed down with ‘social enterprises’. But social enterprises running on bank loans or public funding, and ‘advising’ other social enterprises and third sector outfits, are no substitute for a real economy; just a system kept afloat by the block grant from Westminster.

Independence with this as the model would reduce us to cannibalism in about five years, maybe less. On the plus side, if it ever came to that, then there are specimens in the Senedd that could feed the average village for a week.

Is the Ynni Cymru grant to Business in Focus really about green energy, and reducing bills, or a disguised hand-out to keep them afloat?

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AFANTI MEDIA LTD £668,558

This is owned by power duo Emyr and Mair Afan Davies, and they have a number of other companies. Here are those listed with Companies House for Emyr. And those for Mair. There is of course a big overlap. And many are no longer with us.

One that caught my eye, Cynhyrchiadau J Ltd, (Productions J Ltd), was Dissolved in June 2018. But with an outstanding charge held by Finance Wales, since renamed the Development Bank of Wales (DBW), run by the ‘Welsh Government’.

Then there’s the Avanti Media Media Group Ltd, with two outstanding charges with DBW. Though one seems to have been carried over from Cynhyrchiadau J.

Avanti Media itself, the recipient of the Ynni Cymru funding, shares the other charge with a third company, Avanti Media Group.

The ‘Welsh Government Media Service’ tells us us what the Afanti grant is for:

Afanti Media is set to receive £668,558 to help bring cleaner power centre stage at festivals, cultural events and broadcasts across Wales. The company has already used its battery technology at events including the Eisteddfod yr Urdd, Cân i Gymru and S4C’s Super Rygbi Cymru coverage.

The investment will help expand the use of battery-powered systems at events across Wales, reducing reliance on traditional diesel-powered generators while creating quieter event spaces and reducing emissions.

So it’s to phase out diesel-powered generators. Very worthy, perhaps. But shouldn’t a private company be funding this itself? And where are the community benefits?

When I saw the name ‘Afanti’ I was reminded of Avanti!, the newspaper old Benito edited between 1912 and 1914. Though it was during his socialist period, so I wasn’t a subscriber.

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SMALLER FRY

Just to be fair, and so they wouldn’t feel ignored, I also had a peek at a few of those who got smaller grants. Here’s one that caught my eye.

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G39 £113,400

That’s this lot. As you can see, they only got £113,400, but in these uncertain times, with Russian paratroopers ready to drop on us, blackouts forecast, and climate change about to engulf us, every penny counts.

The money is for solar panels – on a building g39 doesn’t own, and looks somewhat temporary! (Image here.)

So who or what is g39? It’s something to do with the Arts, I think. Here’s how it describes itself. Note the Palestinian flag, and the admission that the bulk of the funding comes from the Arts Council of Wales (ACW). Even though most of those involved have only a tenuous connection to Wales.

(The ACW is totally captured, and was the body that funded the decolonisation of the hated Welsh cake. For which we shall be eternally grateful.)

To judge by its Strategic Equality Action Plan, and the emphasis on “dismantling systemic inequality“, it’s another far-left gang that believes white people are evil.

The latest accounts (click here) confirm the ACW funding on page 7, and on page 5 you’ll read, in ‘Future plans’: ‘The Communist Party South Wales Archive Project’. Hang on – are we paying for this?

Looking at the Charity Commission entry for g39, and the financial history, we see that income has dropped steadily over the previous three years, and it’s been outstripped by expenditure in the past two years.

Making me wonder if the Ynni Cymru grant for ‘solar panels’ is a ruse to keep g39 afloat, because the figures you’ve just read head in only one direction.

Those involved with g39 can hold any views they like, but no organisation so partisan and exclusive – bordering perhaps on extremist – should receive any form of public funding.

The problem is that those giving the funding belong to the same far-left bubble, divorced from mainstream thinking, as the recipients. And that applies across the board, not just to g39.

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CONCLUSION

There are worthy causes getting grants from Ynni Cymru, but those I’ve highlighted seem questionable, often because I struggle to see the community benefits. And if we’re talking about cheaper energy, then the best way to deliver that is to dump net zero.

But that would mean having to admit the ‘climate crisis’ is one big scam, created to make the rich richer and the rest of us poorer. But too many have been fooled.

And then there’s the issue of the money going to the well connected. No surprise in Wales, for Labour spent a century building the crony state, in which funding, jobs and sinecures, go to those who support or submit to Labour.

Plaid Cymru running the Senedd will be no improvement because in the era of the Globalist Uniparty only those standing outside that system can make a difference.

Ynni Cymru is a just another way of servicing that crony state while indulging in what can only be described as virtue funding: ‘Look at us . . . worthy causes . . . saving the planet . . . blahdeblah’.

Wasting money to get a good write-up in the Guardian from Will Hayward is truly despicable. Explain it to the family of the 93-year-old who lay for 10 hours on a cold floor waiting for an ambulance.

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© Royston Jones 2026