Social Housing, Time to End This Lunacy

I have written many times about the national disaster that passes for a housing strategy in our rural areas, a ‘strategy’ that sees private properties built for which there is no local demand, or at prices most of us can’t afford, while in the social sector we have an allocations system that ensures just about anyone qualifies ahead of locals. Quite recently, thanks to the indefatigable Wynne Jones, I have become acquainted with yet another cause for concern, one that would boggle a mind less inured to the lunacies of devolved Wales.

This particular example comes from Pembrokeshire, and the cause for concern is Mill Bay Homes, a subsidiary of Pembrokeshire Housing. Or at least, that’s what it says on the Mill Bay Homes website, but there’s no mention of Mill Bay Homes on the Pembrokeshire Housing website. But as they share the same address in Haverfordwest we must assume they are known to each other.

If we go to this page on the Mill Bay Homes website we see that this subsidiary of the Pembrokeshire Housing Association Ltd operates no different to a private company in that it builds and sells property using the justification that it is “a business with a social purpose” because the money it makes will be invested in social housing built by the parent company.

Mill Bay Help to Buy

Elsewhere on the Mill Bay website you will see the image reproduced above, so what is the Help to Buy – Wales scheme? Quite simply, it’s the local variant of a UK-wide programme to boost the building trade by helping prospective house buyers. A buyer needs to contribute only 5% of the purchase price, the ‘Welsh’ Government will then give a shared-equity loan of 20% if the purchaser can find an acceptable mortgage lender for the remaining 75%. An excellent idea, surely?

Certainly, and it gets even better when we open the ‘Welsh’ Government’s Help to Buy publication and scroll down to page six, where, in the right-hand column, we read, “The property purchased must be your only residence. Help to Buy – Wales is not available to assist buy–to–let investors or those who will own any property other than their Help to Buy – Wales property after completing their purchase”. (My emphasis.)

Yet despite the programme’s ban on those hoping to use public funding for private investment the Mill Bay Homes website actually encourages the “Investment Buyer”. (See panel below.) How can Mill Bay Homes offer investment buyers access to a scheme that specifically bars them! No doubt Mill Bay Homes would tell us that it differentiates between investors and owner-occupiers, and that Help to Buy is only offered to the former . . . but nowhere on its website does it say this.

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I’ve already said that Help to Buy is a UK-wide scheme overseen in Wales by the ‘Welsh’ Government, but I wasn’t sure who actually implements it, who dishes out the lucre as it were. So I made some enquiries. The money is disbursed by Help To Buy (Wales) Ltd, company number 08708403, Incorporated 28.09.2013, and based at 1 Capital Quarter, Tyndall Street, Cardiff CF10 4BZ.

Help To Buy (Wales) Ltd has share capital of £1 held by Finance Wales Plc with the Ultimate Parent Company given as “Welsh Ministers”. Welsh Ministers! Does that refer to a vestryful of nonconformist divines or those buffoons down Cardiff docks? Unfortunately, it means the latter.

The three directors of Help To Buy (Wales) Ltd are Dr David James Staziker, Mr Kevin Patrick O’Leary and Mr Michael Owen. A fourth director, Ms Siân Lloyd Jones, resigned on September 30th. They are also directors of FW Capital Ltd (07078439), and North West Loans Ltd (07397297). In addition, there is FW Development Capital (North West) GP Ltd (08355233). All share the Help To Buy address and all link back to ‘Welsh Ministers’. In fact, there are lots of companies linked to Finance Wales Plc and O’Leary, Owen and Jones seem to have been directors of most of them.

Help to Buy 1

Why so many companies, and who are Staziker, O’Leary and Owen? Are they civil servants who (for the sake of public consumption) are answerable to the ‘Welsh’ Government or are they businesspeople or professionals employed by the ‘Welsh’ Government? Either way, what power do these people have to ensure that millions and millions of pounds of our money is properly spent? And if they simply dole out the money, then who does ensure that it’s properly spent?

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I can see the Help to Buy scheme working just fine in England, and Scotland, and also in our towns and cities, though in our rural areas it risks exacerbating the problem I have discussed countless times, and that’s because anyone from anywhere can apply to the Help to Buy Scheme to purchase a new property in a Welsh town or village. No local connection is required.

This refusal on the part of the ‘Welsh’ Labour ‘Government’ in Cardiff docks to prioritise Welsh interests almost certainly explains the planning application for 30 new properties in Cilgerran, north Pembrokeshire, submitted by Mill Bay Homes Ltd. Here’s the planning application, I suggest you keep it open in another window or browser so that you can refer to it as I go along.

You will see – in Section 3 – that the application is for planning consent for 8 x 3-bed detached houses, 12 x 3-bed semi-detached houses, and 10 x 2-bed semi-detached houses. Scroll down to Section 18 and you will see that all thirty dwellings are described as “Social Rented Housing”. Which is odd seeing as this planning application was submitted by Mill Bay Housing, which only builds to sell, even inviting investors.

Something else worth remarking on is that in my experience very few detached three-bedroom houses are built for the social rental sector. Oh, and one other thing . . . Pembrokeshire Housing offers a Welsh version of its website, whereas Mill Bay Homes is strictly English only.

Cilgerran

For those who don’t know Cilgerran, it’s a pleasant, scenic village upriver from Cardigan. In 1931 94% of the population of Cilgerran parish was Welsh speaking, today it’s below 50%, for the usual reason: economic decline disguised with the kind of tourism that does little for locals but encourages their replacement with a wealthier stratum of good-lifers, retirees, fleece jacket fascists and others drawn by the area’s physical and scenic attractions, an immigrant population having no regard for the area’s cultural heritage and national identity.

Though perhaps the major question is, why has Mill Bay Homes, a company that on its own website is described as specialising “in the development and sale of homes suited to the lifestyles of customers who range from those buying for the first time through to those looking to downsize or retire” now put in a planning application for rented social housing?

It could be that the answer lies with the use of words such as “lifestyles”, “downsizing” and “retire”. For they sound very odd if these properties are being built for locals to rent, but they’re just the kind of sales pitch I’d expect to see used if the Cilgerran development is targeting buyers from over the border.

So what is the truth about this Cilgerran development and Mill Bay Homes? I think we’re entitled to answers. Maybe the ‘Welsh Ministers’ or the troika named above can assure us that the operations of Pembrokeshire Housing and Mill Bay Homes are above board, and that our generosity isn’t being abused.

Specifically: Has Mill Bay Homes helped ‘investors’ access the Help to Buy scheme? Is public money being used to build properties in Cilgerran described as social housing but intended to be sold on the open market?

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The relationship between Pembrokeshire Housing and Mill Bay Homes is one I have expressed concerns about before. (Here’s one example.) It sees a body in receipt of large amounts of public funding set up a subsidiary that operates in a way that is either difficult to track, or else in a manner barred to the parent body. The relationship is too often opaque and offers no guarantee that public funding to the parent body is not channelled to the unregulated and unaudited (by funders) subsidiary.

This is what we appear to have with Pembrokeshire Housing and Mill Bay Homes. Even though the latter piously claims that its “earnings will be covenanted to the parent company (Pembrokeshire Housing) for the express purpose of re-investment in the social housing development programme in Pembrokeshire” we have no guarantee of that, because Mill Bay Homes does not receive direct public funding it is not audited.

This parent and subsidiary arrangement should not be allowed where the parent body is in receipt of public funding unless the subsidiaries are covered by the same regulations and checks as the parent body. Ask yourself this, ‘How did Mill Bay Homes build its first properties? Was it with money given by Pembrokeshire Housing? And was that start-up money funding that the parent company had received in ‘Welsh’ Government grants? If so, who authorised this generosity?

In the wider context we now see a social housing sector that is costing Wales hundreds of millions of pounds every year for very little return. The reasons for this unsustainable situation are clear.

We have far too many housing associations. All paying inflated salaries and pension packages to their senior staff. Those same executives, understanding the dog-eat-dog world they inhabit, and fearful of being swallowed up by a rival, believe they must grow to survive, which inevitably results in increased levels of speculative building unrelated to local need. But don’t worry – it’s only public money! And Wales can afford it.

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The Earthshaker

Depressing reading but worthwhile knowing about and you can only conclude that either the Welsh Government knows companies like Millbay are using their Help to Buy scheme for buy-to-let landlords to get access to social housing and can’t or wont do anything about it or they aren’t aware of the practice in the first place, which ever it is, it shows how incompetent the Welsh Government and civil service really are and this is one area.

On the matter of Welsh Government funding by chance the Assembly’s Finance Committee is asking the public for their thoughts and priorities for the Welsh Government £15.9 billion budget for 2016/7 to put in their Draft Budget report in the new year, closing date for reponses is 7th Jan so not long but worth responding if you feel strongly enough http://www.assembly.wales/en/newhome/pages/newsitem.aspx?itemid=1536

As for Natural Resource Wales you’ve got to wonder whose pulling the strings, there’s a current consultation on starting scallop dredging in Cardigan Bay, the mind boggles as to anyone would even think about it, there’s a petition with more than £15,000 signatures if anyone wants sign and share it https://www.change.org/p/welsh-government-save-cardigan-bay?recruiter=30095601&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Keep up the good work!

Anonymous

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dafis

Agreed. The really offensive bit is that no other party seems at all interested in tearing down this shambles. The Tories should be ideologically opposed but I suspect it suits their perverse agenda to let Labour fuck things up in Wales so that they can point fingers in the blame game and cite this as yet another example of dumb Labour, yet do nothing about it. As for the other parties, and even the Tories in Wales, they all seem to have some kind of vested interest or ideological attachment to this chronic waste of money. Big business will soon be moaning again about Gwynedd not gifting planning permission for some 360 houses etc at Bangor. Evidently the mix was wrong, with too much emphasis on bigger ticket properties unlikely to attact interest among native locals, but could sell to yet more folks from far end of A55.

Away from housing I see that your old girlfriend Edwina has been rearranging the goodies among her “regulars” down the Bay. Mrs Leighton Andrews turns up to chair one of Edwina & Carwyn’s pet projects, and no doubt Lord Hain’s dame will get something new soon just to keep them sweet down west. Nothing like a bit of objective selection !

Glen

“Lord Hain’s dame” was recently appointed to the board of National Resources Wales.

https://naturalresources.wales/about-us/our-chair-board-and-management-team/members-of-our-board/?lang=en

dafis

Of that lot Emyr Roberts and Howard Davies seem relevant while the others fall into the “influential and well- connected” category. Ms Havard seems to have the usual attributes, but does not seem to be plumbed into the Merthyr mafia.

WD

Merthyr mafia what does that mean?

Anonymous

try this for an introduction

https://jacothenorth.net/blog/tag/brendan-toomey/

then google away and you’ll find enough to keep you going for a good while over the Xmas break !

Anonymous

try this for starters

https://jacothenorth.net/blog/merthyr-all-aboard-the-welsh-labour-gravy-train/

then google any of the relevant material within that article and you will have hours of reading material which should enlighten you

anonymous

looking in the wrong place – look at the Cabinet reports for the last 12 months and see how “involved” the Councillors are with the local FC. £1.8 million quid? according to a report on 29.07.2015???!!!! look at the declarations of conflicts of interest? Blogging is opinion council minutes are fact [supposedly].

Colin

You have to give Gwynedd CC their due to sticking to the rules with new housing. Watkin Jones have already sulked and said they’re not playing in Gwynedd again after they were refused permission for more than their allotted allocation of non affordable hosing (or as I see it, larger houses of poor quality with less walls and more profit). I wish Ynys Mon CC would adopt a similar attitude, the houses that are being built are beyond belief in my village, I’ve seen smaller hotels in Llandudno, a few years ago locals had a job getting planning permission for a bungalow because it was out of character! Phrases with the words “corrupt”, “bastards” and “backhanders” spring to mind

Colin

With reluctance I agree but Ynys Mon CC are a disgrace with few exceptions

dafis

probably just restating things I said before here and elsewhere, but it really grieves me to see a service born out of good intentions being highjacked by so many conniving bastards playing out a totally different social and political agenda to that which drove the beginnings of social housing.

Why is the political ( and indeed social and economic ) arena so full of such wasters who can pontificate at length, secure funding for any crackpot initiative they care to dream up and generally get away without ever being fully answerable for their decisions and actions ?

On the bigger stage, I have observed major events over recent weeks – UK decision to drop bombs on Syria, Global Climate Change coference in Paris, and the on-going “debate” about UK membership of EU. Common denominator ? The volumes of bullshit being generated in each case. Addresses delivered with clarity and honesty have been like hen’s teeth, with enough hot air to undo any good that Paris hoped to achieve.

Too much politics, too few positive outcomes.

Wynne

Excellent post again Jac. Have you considered coming out of retirement and joining the Panorama team.