Bit of a departure, this one. Or maybe not. It’s more ‘planet saving’ bullshit; with one example dressed up as feeding the masses, the other somehow helping a housing association.
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BACKGROUND
In twenty-seven years of mismanaging Wales Labour had a twin-track approach to agriculture. On the one hand, real farming was attacked and undermined; while anything that could be presented as an alternative, an improvement, was promoted.
This was justified as ‘saving the planet’, either by mitigating the damage done to the environment by traditional Welsh livestock farming (farting cows and all that), or else by bringing new life to rural areas. Often combined.
Pure, naked Globalism. For the elites that control our politicians want the land for themselves, and they also want to control what we eat. Not so long ago we were being told to eat insects. What happened to that campaign? Short answer, it was bollocks; nutritionally and in other ways, and the truth caught up with it.
But let’s not forget that control of the food supply is part of the ultimate power grab.
To sell this power grab to slimeball politicians always looking to appear virtuous the Globalists dreamed up anthropogenic climate change, net zero, and the UN’s Agenda 2030. For everything is predicated on, and flows from, climate change.
More importantly, what we are being forced to do to combat this wholly contrived threat.
The driving force in Wales was someone who’s appeared here regularly, Jane Davidson. She attended the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. But why was she there?
A privately-educated woman who’d drifted to Wales and was so well-in with the Labour establishment that after serving on Cardiff city council for a while she was gifted the safe Labour seat of Pontypridd in the first Welsh Assembly elections of 1999.
In the Labour-Plaid coalition of 2007-2011 Davidson was Minister for the Environment and Sustainability.
She is the self-confessed author of the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015. This is no exercise in wishful thinking; for it influences almost every aspect of Welsh life. Everything must conform to its dictates.
Which brings me to the first recognisable example of what we’ll be looking at in a minute. And it pre-dates the Future Generations legislation. This was One Planet Developments (OPD). Covered under Technical Advice Note (TAN) 6. Which encouraged individuals, families, small groups, to buy or acquire a small plot of land, live off-grid, and be self-sufficient.
Often retrospectively legitimising existing rural slums.
Like so many of the previous ‘Welsh Government’s worst ideas this one originated with, or was helped along by, outfits based in Bristol.
Land Use Consultants is still in business and doing quite well. In fact, the most recent accounts report a turnover of more than £24 million with some £12.7 million spent on 324 employees.
But the Positive Development Trust CIC is long gone. It was launched September 23, 2011 and Dissolved on Christmas Eve 2013. Almost as if it came into existence solely to promote OPD in Wales. Does anyone recognise a name among the directors?
One Planet Developments may have been pushed (insincerely) as some alternative kind of farming, but in reality it attracted superannuated hippies, good-lifers, and others with barely a clue about rural living.
There are still some new OPDs cropping up, but the idea never really took off. Though it might have morphed . . .
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FEEDING THE BRUMMIE MASSES
Now we’re heading to Wern farm, near Sarn, which is east of Newtown, Powys. In fact, very close to the border. Which is convenient for all involved. Here’s a recent report from the Lanyard-wearers Bugle.
This land is owned by Powys county council, currently led by Lib Dem Jake Berriman, mentioned in the article just linked to. Berriman may not long have been in Wales, for someone of the same name was CEO at Shropshire Housing Group.
Though the project was opposed by Kerry, the community council involved. Which just last year held a packed public meeting . . .
. . . in response to growing concerns about Powys County Council selling off parts of its tenanted farm estate.
Selling or renting them to well-funded pressure groups, hippies, and good-lifers.
Wern launched as the ‘Welsh Government’s Future Farms Pilot, which was . . .
. . . established to test a practical and scalable model for enabling new entrant horticultural businesses to access land, secure affordable on-site homes and supply local markets in Powys and wider Wales.
So where in Wales is Birmingham?
Also mentioned in the Guardian article is Our Food Trust, a new one on me. So who are they? Here’s their website, where they tell us they’re:
Building 100 affordable farms growing food agroecologically for local and regional markets.
Advocating that Welsh Government addresses the food security threat decisively, through the new Food Strategy currently being developed.
It’s found in Crickhowell, Abergavennyshire, and is a registered charity. The first trustee named is George James Stewart Wallis. He can also be found as a trustee of the London-based Wellbeing Economy Alliance.
But who’s that there with him? Why! it’s Sophie Howe, former Future Generations Commissar for Wales. As for the other trustees, your guess is as good as mine. But I don’t think they’re from round by ‘ere.
Going back to Our Food Trust, the second trustee named is Holly Tomlinson. Next is 94-year-old James Steuart Skinner. (Any relation to James Scott Skinner?) Finally, there’s Christopher Albrecht Bielenberg; born in 1942 to an anti-Nazi German father and an Anglo-Irish mother. He seems to have dabbled offshore, because he gets a mention in Offshore Leaks.
But running the show, as joint-CEOs, are Duncan Fisher and Sue Holbrook. Both have generously moved to Wales so that we might benefit from their wisdom.
Also giving support is another gang of grifters at Cynnal Cymru. Funded of course by the ‘Welsh Government’.
But let’s not overlook support from the Landworkers’ Alliance. I’ve never been able to take this lot seriously. Middle-class English envirogrifters – playing at being peasants!
I read some of their output a few years back and I couldn’t help laughing. It conjured up images of moustachioed hombres wielding machetes, marching off to have it out with the local representative of United Fruit. Laughable.
I don’t want to spend any more time on this nonsense, because that’s what it is. It’s being funded and justified as a move towards making Wales more self-sufficient in food – but most of it gets shipped to Birmingham.
In fact, Lydia Dibben, one of the ‘farmers’, is quoted in the article saying:
Because of the cost of living crisis, there’s a limited amount of people who can afford to buy the veg we produce, and we are growing a hell of lot more than we can sell locally.
Locals can’t afford the organic produce of Wern farm – so it’s shipped off to Brum where it’s bought – with public money – by the council, for local schools, etc.
Finally, a big attraction of these allotments is that each can have its own accommodation. These count as temporary rural dwellings, and are allowed under Technical Advice Note (TAN) 6, of October 2012.
This, you might recall, was what legitimised One Planet Developments. Which is why I suggested earlier that the faltering OPD idea might have morphed.
Late News: The ‘Welsh Government’ wants more Wern farms according to this put out last week. Mentioned is Ystadau Cymru (Wales’ Estates), another outfit I’d never heard of. Here it is, talking about ‘Community Asset Transfer’.
In practice, this will mean transferring an asset away from the local community to an organisation or individuals favoured by the Corruption Bay in-crowd.
Note the info came just five days after the Guardian piece. Pure coincidence!
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DOWN TO ZERO
Let’s start this section with an article from Nation.Cymru before delving into the truth about this lot. It’s another about growing food, and distributing it to the needy. And it’s received funding as part of a £4.8m package from the ‘Welsh Government’.
There may also be funding from the National Lottery.
So who or what is Down to Zero? Let’s start with the website. You’ll see it’s linked with Cynon Taf Community Housing Group. Based in Abercynon and serving mainly the central valleys.
The founding members were Labour councillor Barry Stephens and John Beresford Chown of leftist think tank the Bevan Foundation.
The image above shows baskets of locally-grown food of the type presumably being delivered. A kind of socialist Deliveroo. (And seeing SM Sioned Williams there means every delivery will come with a lecture on ‘trans rights’.) For those of you wondering about the bananas, they’re a staple crop on the slopes of the Cynon valley.
On the website, we’re met with:
More carbon dioxide (CO2) is now being released than the earth’s land-based plant life and oceans can naturally reabsorb. The excess carbon dioxide has formed a blanket in our atmosphere – trapping the sun’s heat and changing our climate . . .
Truth is, without carbon dioxide all life on Earth would die. More of it means deserts greening and plants growing faster. But this ‘carbon capture’ nonsense is part of the bigger climate scam.
“Trapping the sun’s heat“? Is CO2 being blamed for the ‘heatwaves’ this summer?
Down to Zero is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority as a Community Benefit Society. Registered in August 2022. So let’s check the latest accounts, up to March 31, 2025.
One of the first things to catch my eye was (page 4): “The deficit for the year increased from £16,976 in 2024 to £46,924 in 2025“. Mmm. Looks like the new funding is badly needed.
Despite the increasing deficit, administrative costs jumped – nay, leapt! – from £148,835 in 2024 to £246,167 in 2025. The rest of the financial picture is an equally dismal read.
For example, the amount owed to creditors almost doubled in the same period, from £161,638 to £321,897.
Maybe it’s accounted for by this, also from the Down to Zero accounts (page 6, 7B2):
This year, we were pleased to complete on the purchase of 27 acres of wetland and broadleaf native woodlands in Aberdare, known locally as Cwmbach Wetlands. This is an area of significant carbon stores, biodiversity and natural beauty which is loved by the community. Our work in this area is a leading example of asset-based community development and we are committed to working with Cwmbach Community Wetlands Ltd
Google AI gives more details (below). What a wonderful arrangement, it could be described as circular scammery. Pen y Cymoedd windfarm community fund donated £40,000. So those raking it from wind turbines dish out a little dosh to others lower down the food chain, justified – cos they is all saving the planet!
And one way or another – you are paying for it all!
Purchased in July 2024 for £80,000 by Cynon Taf Community Housing Group via its subsidiary Down to Zero, with a £40,000 contribution from the Pen y Cymoedd windfarm community fund.
This land is now leased to Cwmbach Community Wetlands
Something that causes me to wonder is that Cwmbach Community Wetlands began life before Down to Zero. The former 15.12.2021, the latter 22.08.2022.
Presumably the newt botherers were already active at the site. So why would a housing association, through a subsidiary supposedly supplying food to the widows and orphans of the parish, buy and then lease, 27 acres of wetland?
Shouldn’t a housing association focus on, well, I don’t know . . . housing?
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CONCLUSION
You’ll note that in the above discussions about food there was no mention of meat. There’s a reason for that.
To pursue and promote their agenda of destabilising, dividing, and impoverishing the West the twin-strategy of net zero and open borders guarantees the support of leftists, ‘environmentalists’, religio-imperialists, and others.
Globalists have also recruited an eclectic band of camp followers and useful idiots.
Ranging from assorted sexual perverts and deviants, to anti-car cycling fanatics, and of course – vegans. Vegans were once harmless eccentrics who didn’t bother anyone. Nowadays they’re encouraged to be more assertive, to the point where eating meat is damned as a sign of toxic masculinity! (Eating meat in a caff with veggies nearby probably qualifies as a microaggression.)
Something else that’s changed is that veganism and vegetarianism used to be about the animals. Now we’re told we should give up meat to save the planet. Another example of Globalism recruiting, and ‘re-focusing’, groups and causes to serve the agenda.
AFTERTHOUGHT 23.09.2026: Vegetarianism and veganism had to be ‘re-focused’ because if it was about the animals then they’d have to oppose halal slaughter. But defending and promoting Islam is a vital element of the Globalist agenda. So the cruelty involved in halal gets a free pass.
On a more venal level, and as I mentioned earlier, livestock farming holds vast acreages of land – that Globalists could own, and profit from. Pretending that ‘farming’ can be shrunk to allotments, and we can survive on their produce will, it’s hoped, serve that agenda.
The other factor to consider, certainly with the second example, is that one thing Labour was good at over 27 years of devolution was cronyism. That is, using public money to create pointless jobs for party loyalists, and to fund their organisations. To the point where there are now hundreds of these organisations and thousands of jobs – and we wouldn’t miss them if they all disappeared tomorrow.
Let’s be honest. These allotment-‘farms’ are a virtue-signalling joke. But the ‘Welsh Government’ wants more of them. So they’ll buy land, or councils will use the farms they own – that should be the first rung on the ladder for young, Welsh, farmers.
As we already see at Bremenda Isaf, in Plaid Cymru-run Carmarthenshire. A 100-acre, council-owned farm. Said to be next-door to the local Plaid MP, Ann Davies. Fancy!
It makes no sense. Until you realise it’s all being done to serve a darker agenda.
An agenda that’s becoming clearer by the day.
♦ end ♦
© Royston Jones 2026
Breaking News, Would these people be deemed fit to rule Wales in the event of Wales being granted independence?
One thing we can take from Burnham’s speech is we’re heading back into the EU because a ”grand coaltion” of the left will put it into their manifestos negating the need for a direct vote on it, we had a referendum to ”finally settle the europe issue” but its now clearer than ever its only settled when the globalist left decide its settled – democracy is a sham and one of Burnhams other big ideas is ”voter reform” ie the best system to keep Labour in or propped up in power like they assumed would happen in Wales.
Politics is a sham. It doesn’t matter who you vote for. Larry Fink has more power over the UK than all our politicians combined.
Hopefully he’ll take us back in without a referendum, as we have learned those are so divisive. Just base it on a manifesto commitment and winning the election … which he will if he makes it a commitment
A constitutional change of this magnitude – like devolution – must be decided by a referendum. It was in 2016.
Big lesson of 2016 – No referendum! Stuff will get fixed and public dissent will get walloped just like it gets done now with all those unscheduled “arrivals”. Will get worse before any corner gets turned.
I know it was, but is it a legal necessity? Although we had a referendum, the government of the day did not have to implement the outcome, that was purely down to a parliamentary vote, so presumably all we need is a vote in the House again, which Burnham would win if they fought the election on that
Its going to happen, there is just uncertainty about how and when
”Its going to happen, there is just uncertainty about how and when”
When millions realise democracy doesn’t change anything they’ll look elsewhere – meanwhile the invasion of fighting age men eager to please new masters continues…..
Well the “invasion” as you put it, is unfortunate as it is dangerous, but was a predicted outcome of Brexit. The number, however, are not significant
As soon as we are back in the EU the boats will stop overnight, and according to all polls, that is what the majority want
“As soon as we are back in the EU the boats will stop overnight, and according to all polls, that is what the majority want”
Wrong. Right.
The Dublin aggreement was hardly ever used, 3rd world illegal immigration was going 25+ years ago – Labour encouraged it.
As a trucker on cross channel work around 2000 we were the first to see what was happening before it became public knowledge.
The boats will only stop when its understood they will never be allowed to settle here…end of.
I WOULD like to suggest to owners of old properties who live on highway through roads, with pavements or verges outside their frontages, that they legally check their deeds.
Why? Because there are plans proposed to bring into Wales at least another thousand gigantic wind turbines. Each will require about six monster abnormal lorry loads, from the importing sea dock to the intended rural hilltops. This will, in most cases, involve these loads essentially encroaching onto the pavements and verges outside your home. Some of these land strips are owned by the council highways authority while others may historically still be in the ownership of older homes. My amateur advice to such owners is to check your deeds to see if you can make any claim for these incursions on your land by some form of wayleave.
Everyone else should be ready for months of traffic hold-ups as these heavy abnormal loads bring rural traffic to a standstill and shake your house foundations as they pass.
H M Land Registry title deeds only show “general boundary” to land. Where properties adjoin a public highway there is a rebuttable presumption in law that the property owners own the land to the centre of the highway with the surface “vested” in the LHA. The presumption can be rebutted with evidence to the contrary. I refer to the “ad medium filum” legal presumption. It is a Latin phrase meaning “up to the middle line” and refers to a legal presumption in property law. This principle states that the owner of land adjoining a highway, a non-tidal river, or a stream is presumed to own the land up to the middle line of that feature, provided the ownership cannot be determined by title deeds. This presumption applies to both public and private highways and non-tidal watercourses. For highways, the presumption means that the adjacent landowner owns the subsoil up to the midpoint of the road, while the surface and necessary airspace above the road is typically “vested” in the highway authority, especially if the road is a publicly adopted highway maintained at public expense. However, ad medium filum is a rebuttable presumption, meaning it can be challenged and defeated by stronger evidence. Evidence that can rebut the presumption includes earlier conveyances, plans with accurate measurements, or actions by the seller after the sale that indicate a belief they did not own the roadway. The presumption is particularly relevant for unregistered land where ownership is unclear, such as on development sites where access or utility services are needed.
Slightly off topic but relevant to the climate of gross misrepresentation and warping of facts that is so prevalent in the UK and the wider world
That’s a bit rich coming from a Westminster regime that seems hell bent on continuing with its predecessors’ habitual economy with any kind of truth.
Looks like the party owned and led by rich folk are hooked on shitting all over people who have earned and paid for that state pension which still lags behind the provisions of other organised economies. Reform should focus on stopping more dependency driven types from rocking up on our shores looking for a handout, send many of those already claiming here back to their place of origin, and adopt a generally more robust approach to working age native claimants. If they don’t Kemi will recover and steal their voters!
Emily Thornberry has stated publicly that men can have a cervix. But this, apparently, is not misinformation.
They’re running out of time. It’s all collapsing. Nobody believes them any longer. The only way they can hang on is by cracking down. But it won’t work. It’s too late. People have had enough.
Misinformation and disinformation is provided by official government sources, supported by mainstream media. For accurate factual information tune in to Jac’s blog and U K Column News for excellent analysis of events in Wales and global events.
It’s going to be a case of the guilty judging the innocent.
Don’t they already have the 77th and who knows what other outfits mass-upvoting pro-Union comments on online newspaper articles?
The 77th? Small time stuff compared the juggernaut mass of 5 bellies Thornberry. How that panto dame gets accorded serious credibility by MSM tells all you need to know about the rotten corrupt Brit state and the media that should hold it to account.
I likes ’em beefy.
Distraction tactics by appealing to your base instincts while her mates build a wind turbine in your back yard!
Pretty sure Duncan Fisher advised BBNP on its assessment criteria for rural enterprise homes. More to this than salad.
Rural Enterprise Homes should be allowed for a maximum of three years. Those at Sarn are for five years.
If the ‘farming to feed inner-city kids from the Mother Country’ bit is borne of a genuine crisis of malnutrition, why aren’t they growing your staple carb-heavy crops, i.e. spuds? Cucumbers, courgettes and tomatoes are a nice accompaniment to a meal but they’re almost completely bereft of real calorific nutritional value. And don’t get me started on fuckin’ dill…
That why it’s so absurd. Commercially unviable produce that locals can’t afford only becomes viable with the intervention of the public purse.
Excellent POSTING Jac. I’m sure you, or someone like you, with time to spare, could write a concise up to date book on these many facets of green scam and net zero.
Jane Davison published her book on composting of which was bought by many green gullibles. Talking of Dear Jane – does anyone know what was the research topic for her academic title of Doctor that she has so frequently flaunted and what University Library holds copy of her PhD Thesis? She really deserves a Peerage for services to One Planets. She could become known as Baroness of Allotment Land but had better get in a quick nomination before one of the Plaid Cymru laddies beat her to it.
Yesterday on his way to the US Burnham refused to rule out reversing Brexit as a manifesto commitment – ie a leftist stitch up without referendum, no doubt aided by a similar commitment from the Liberals, Greens, Plaid and SNP.
Today snivelling Ed Davey spent half of his speach ranting on about stopping a divided right, making the obligatory comparisons with 1930’s Germany.
If this happens the nation state in the west is dead, no good owning a Welsh passport when you can’t stop your grandson getting sent to the Russian front because power ultimately lies with Globalists in Brussels not those we elect at home.
On the plus side Trump stayed on script at the UN general assembly and drove home the threat of the Globalist agenda.
As I’ve been saying for 10 years, Brexit was a hell of a shock to the elite. Trump getting elected made it even worse. And they’ve been fighting against both for a decade.
And, yes, he laid into the bastards at the UN today. They’ll probably try to assassinate him again.
The SNP and Sinn Fein have a mandate from their respective peoples to oppose Brexit, rightly or wrongly.
I didn’t mention the EU.
Neither did I – but we both mentioned Brexit. 😉
Fair enough.
Thanks Jac. For those wishing to find out more about UN Agenda 2030 the link below provides access to quality analysis / research.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/search?keywords=UN+Agenda+2030
Thank you, Wynne. More people need to read it. And understand its implications.
I have some vague recall of that farm you mentioned in the Tywi Valley near Llanarthne. Places like that should be made available to young farmers looking for a step up within the industry. Handing it to any group playing at arable farming will do next to nothing to enhance the national food stock. The marketing material on the Bremenda Web site implies high priced produce which may be OK selling to some niche dining venues in Sir Gar but unlikely to appeal to many natives who exist on tight budgets.
I’m all in favour of the agri sector focussing more on production of good quality foods but this model would be better applied to a smaller unit of land as a pilot before switching to larger productive acreage for scaling to cost effective and competitively priced outputs.
Of course the underlying problem is that we get an influx of oddballs for whom the concepts of productivity, efficiency and competitiveness represent the worst excesses of capitalism. I wonder how they will feel when the veil drops and they find those globalist corporates who have aided and abetted them are among the worst kind of extractive capitalists.
True, but as we know, they don’t want young farmers going into an industry they’re trying to destroy.
And as for these allotments, they’re being touted as an answer to local food shortages, or answering some local demand. But the one in Powys sends the produce to Birmingham, where it only becomes ‘affordable’ because it’s bought with public money. The one in the Cynon valley is also subsidised. Would either be commercially viable if they had to sell their produce to the public in competition with those who produce at scale? Answer: NO.
This is gesture ‘farming’. Virtue signalling being perhaps the only thing Corruption Bay is good at.
The Tywi flood plain is noteable for flooding quite away upriver from Caerfyrddin, certainly beyond Nantgaredig. Will this new venture run the risk of becoming a giant rice paddy…..without any rice!
Don’t knock it – Welsh rice could become a nice product. Then these ventures might be commercially viable.
Welsh rice pudding straight from Sir Gar, beef curry from locally reared beef and rice, or ‘alf and’alf by adding local Sir Benfro spuds – all branded “Glan Tywi!. All it needs is a bit of commercial savvy and real agri nous, none of this ecoloafing and lounging that is the preferred lifestyle of oddball incomers.
The supermarkets do that. Years ago I attended a conference on the dangers of doing business with the supermarkets…honestly!! because what the supermarkets do is entice farmers in with..dont worry!! we will pay X number of £s for your cattle or lambs and so you will do fine. Its a lure you in price. So the farmers go and buy more cattle or lambs and maybe spend on new barns etc only to find that at the end of the agreement the supermarket halves the price!..oh woops…and I know this is true. So the farmers are out of pocket and are then forced to sell their produce for peanuts because we all want cheap meat!.
Supermarkets rip off everybody. Except of course, their shareholders.
Yes, the Welsh Veg in Schools project, where produce is distributed via Castell Howell is subsidised, but it also is providing organic only. Serious commercial growers laugh at the effort and expense exerted to resolve a problem that’s easily solved, but there is an aversion to conventional growing – the evil of mechanisation and herbicides etc etc. Those in this space then take to social media to moan about the difficulties of a hot summer watering 9 carrots and a lettuce all night. I’m all for better farming practices but this ‘activity’ is predominantly led by the anti animal ag brigade with an ideological agenda.
That, I’m afraid, is the story of net zero – we pay more for everything. Food, electricity, fuel for our cars. But why?