This piece was prompted by someone asking me if I’d read an article recently published on the Nation.Cymru website. I smiled to myself, and responded in the negative.
(The answer to both questions is almost certainly No.)
The area under threat is Mynydd Fforch-dwm. The piece in Nation.Cymru a few days back concerned Brynau (pinned) and Cefn Morfudd. Fforch-dwm is to the east.
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Back to the article, which was unattributed, suggesting it was a press release, and that N.T, funded by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’, has truly joined the Welsh media.
The article told us that Coed Cadw, the Welsh branch of the Woodland Trust, had “secured” 140 hectares at Cefn Morfudd to add to the 95 hectares previously acquired at Brynau farm.
Let’s look into it a little more. And as ever, the real question is, where’s the money coming from?
The purchase . . . supported by grants from Lloyds Bank and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, funding from People’s Postcode Lottery . . . donations . . . Moondance Foundation and the Banister Charitable Trust . . . grant from The Woodland Investment Grant (TWIG) scheme, a partnership between The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Welsh Government
Most look to be straightforward grants, but two piqued my interest.
The Moondance Foundation, is the charitable arm of the Admiral Insurance group. The company formed by American Henry Engelhardt, and Wales’ only FTSE 100 company.
Admiral Group plc is owned by . . . shareholders, including the Moondance Foundation, Rothschild & Co, Fidelity Management & Research, and FIL Investment Advisors
In April 2021, Admiral finalised the sale of interests, that included its Cardiff-based price comparison firm Confused.com, to RVU for proceeds of £508m.
The first entry mentions Silver Lake as a ‘US equity firm’. Silver Lake (Offshore) AIV GP V Ltd is the ultimate owner of RVU, and it’s registered in the Cayman Islands.
How often do we end up in the Caymans – or other sun-blest locales – when looking into planet savers?
The money for Coed Cadw at Bryn Morfudd may be coming from the Moondance Foundation, or the Moondance Foundation might simply be acting as a conduit. For having just mentioned so many hard-nosed investors, and tax haven companies, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we were looking at another bit of greenwashing.
The other name that caught my attention was the Banister Charitable Trust. But I couldn’t find a website, only references like this. It’s based in Bristol, the source of so much ‘green-ism’.
Established in 2020 to acquire and manage the UK trust business of Coutts and the NatWest Group . . .
In 2024, Ludlow Trust also acquired the UK trust business of C. Hoare & Co.
So it’s a very recent creation, and it would appear to be in the business of saving people money, by way of avoiding taxes wherever possible, or investing in those areas offering reductions in tax, and other benefits.
The Companies House entry is also interesting. Looking through the recent grants I found a number of recipients based in Wales. (I include the Woodland Trust because there’s unlikely to be a separate payment to Coed Cadw.)
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Tracking the ultimate ownership and control of the Banister Charitable Trust led me to Luxembourg, the EU’s internal tax haven. To be exact, 2 Rue des Gaulois and the Charter Trust Group.
It then comes back to London, and there’s an Isle of Man connection. But the point, I think, with both Moondance and Banister, is that the money offered may be rather more than no-strings-attached grants.
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THE BIT IN THE MIDDLE
To recap: In a recent post we looked at the 200m turbines planned for Mynydd Fforch-dwm, and now we’ve looked at Woodland Trust expanding its little empire at Brynau and Cefn Morfudd.
But if we look again at the map, we see there’s a bit in between, Mynydd Blaenafon, so who owns this?
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To find out I obviously went to the Land Registry website. Here’s the title document I downloaded. You’ll see the land was bought in September 2020, for £525,000, by Peter Jeffrey Solly, of Exeter in Devon, who has a chequered record.
Natural capital is the value of everything that comes from nature — soil, air, water and all living creatures
This is the Greensters dream – get politicians to introduce subsidies, grants and tax breaks for just about anything. Buy a field and claim it’s capturing carbon, breeding worms, or providing a habitat for moles – then wait for the lucre to roll in.
And when things start growing in your field . . . well, you’ll be able to order your private jet to get to the January knees-ups in Davos.
And you can even demand payment for the air above your field.
This explains why assorted corporations, asset managers, hedge funds, tax avoidance specialists, investors, etc., are buying up just about every parcel of land they can.
Though in the case of Solly his ambitions tread an already well-worn path. Because if we look more closely at the title document we see, at the very end:
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He has a lease agreement with a company called Mynydd Fforch Dwm Wind Energy 2021 Ltd. This is a front for Naturalis, which we read about in the earlier piece. So I won’t go over the links again.
What I find intriguing though is the timing. Solly bought the land at Mynydd Blaenafon in September 2020. The Naturalis website for Mynydd Fforch Dwm Wind Farm is also dated 2020.
Is Solly working with, or for, the company behind the plan for Mynydd Fforch-dwm? Was he tipped off? Then again, is Mynydd Fforch-dwm a red herring, and are the turbines really planned for Mynydd Blaenafon?
Or are turbines planned on both mountains? God knows there are enough in the area already. Maybe somebody’s hoping a couple of dozen more won’t be noticed.
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I’m not sure what exactly’s happening, but it begins to look a little complicated, maybe even devious. So here’s a thought . . .
According to the Land Registry, Mynydd Fforch-dwm is still in Welsh ownership. The owner has entered into an agreement with Mynydd Fforch Dwm Wind Energy 2021 Ltd.
While next door, the land at Mynydd Blaenafon was sold outright to Peter Jeffrey Solly. So was the previous owner, the Welsh owner, unaware of the turbine plans?
Worth asking, because everywhere we look in modern Wales we see Welsh people losing out, being displaced. We own less of Wales now than at any time in our history. Certainly less than we did before devolution.
That’s what 26 years of socialist rule under Labour and Plaid Cymru has achieved.
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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
In our former mining valleys today it seems as if all land outside towns and villages is to be given over to wind farms. All of them foreign owned, with vast profits flooding out of Wales every day.
But why be surprised – this is Globalism. The land is bought up, cleared, exploited, and people are confined to 15-minute settlements, with travelling discouraged.
Superficially, and from a Welsh perspective, it may look bleak. But with President Trump declaring the ‘climate emergency’ to be a scam, and J D Vance humiliating the Globalist puppets running Europe, our enemy’s agenda is under real threat.
Starmer has a massive majority in MPs, but little popular support (less credibility). The EU is tottering. Germany goes to the polls on the 23rd. The war in Ukraine will soon end, and there’ll be huge revelations that not even the BBC will be able to ignore.
Thinking more locally – Labour will lose the 2026 Senedd elections. And many or most of the council by-elections between now and then.
PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR
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This was intended to be a sort of bits and pieces post in which I looked at various topics. Among them the sale of Coleg Harlech and an update on the (ex-)student councillors that used to plague Swansea council, a sort of ‘Where are they now?’
For your information, and titillation, one former Labour councillor ended up working for Tory Home Secretary Javid; another went home to California before returning to promote herself as a ‘political consultant’; a third works as a ‘Director of Sponsor Relations’ for a US company; a fourth worked for that same company before becoming a ‘globetrotter’; while a fifth – the only Tory – got banged up for child pornography.
But all that can wait because cogs have been turning in the old Jac noggin as I tried to make sense of who’s who and what’s what on either side of that great turbulence that cleaves Jack from Turk.
Not a great deal of new information has come to light but I have been pointed in certain directions and the bigger picture is now less opaque as connections are made and things fall into place.
Though I beg you to be patient, because this is one of the most complicated investigations I’ve ever done.
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DAWNUS
There are a few things to add on Dawnus itself, and the myriad companies that sheltered ‘neath that umbrella. To help you get up to speed I advise you to read Dawnus and Dawnus 2.
The asset stripping and dismemberment of Dawnus may or may not have begun with the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone 2014/15 but it certainly ties in with the arrival of Nicholas Charles Down, who now seems to run what’s left of Dawnus.
Though having said that, two new companies have emerged from the ashes. The first, on 22 March, was Dawnus International Group Ltd, which has already changed its name to DIG International Group Ltd. This new entity contains as directors a number of names that have appeared before in connection with the Dawnus group.
Another piece of the puzzle is Legsun Ltd, a company that is heavily in debt and whose directors are, since 14 February 2014, Timothy Alun Lowe, who has served as director with many Dawnus companies and also, since 12 March 2018, Dawnus head honcho Nicholas Charles Down.
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The early documents for Legsun are not available with Companies House without payment but we know that the company was started in March 1973, and though it now uses a Cardiff address it was previously using an address in the Pontypool area. I am in no doubt that Legsun is linked with the former Royal Ordnance Factory at Glascoed. Today this site is known as BAE Systems Munitions Glascoed.
Legsun is not a commercial company in the sense that you or I understand that term, because no genuine company could sustain losses on the scale of Legsun’s without going bust. How Legsun links with the collapse of Dawnus I’m not entirely sure. But it does, if only because Legsun’s only directors are also directors of Dawnus companies, and previous Legsun directors also had Dawnus links.
Legsun introduces the first connection with the military-industrial complex.
There are charges outstanding against all these companies with the sole exception of Legsun which, despite having massive debts, was somehow able to satisfy three charges on March 14.
At the time of writing the administration documents aren’t available with Companies House. There’s also the possibility that other companies in the Dawnus stable may yet follow those listed above into receivership.
Another connection with the military-industrial complex – and one I neglected to mention in the two previous pieces – is Thales, the French ordnance manufacturer. Thales has a presence at Stradey Park (Business Centre), Llangennech, owned now by Robert Nigel Lovering.
What Paddy French told us was that the redundant Ministry of Defence site at Llangennech was bought in early 2009 by Carmarthenshire County Council (Prop. M. V. James) and immediately sold on to R & A Properties, an unregistered company.
According to this WalesOnline report from early May 2009 the manner of the deal was justified by ‘the council’ (the aforementioned M .V. James) because the MoD would otherwise have auctioned the site.
The title document for Stradey Park is interesting. Lovering is named as the owner but the money to buy the site seems to have come from three funders: Lloyds Bank plc, the Secretary of State for Defence, and Carmarthenshire County Council.
The title is dated 1 April 2009. It also refers to land detached in 2015 from the title and directs us to the title plan for Stradey Park . . . which is not available on the Land Registry website.
The ‘sale’ was handled by Hugh James Solicitors of Cardiff, official solicitors for the ‘Welsh Government’.
There appear to be further loans, including one from Thales UK Limited.
There are also leases; one is for ten years from 1 April 2009 and covered by title number CYM465605, which again, is unavailable with the Land Registry, perhaps because that lease has now expired. Another, for 25 years from 27.03.2012, is with SSE Micro Renewables (Commercial) Ltd for the lease of air space.
But none of this can be checked because everything is in the name of the individual Robert Nigel Lovering. Who must be well thought of in certain quarters.
There was understandable disquiet over the deal. One councillor was quoted, “No information was given about the firm that will be creating the jobs beyond the fact that it was involved in defence procurement. Neither were we told who was behind R & A Properties, except that they were known to some of the officers.”
Pickering was also reported as saying, “I know some people will find it strange that R&A is not a limited committee (sic), but we’ve been advised to do it this way by our professional advisers”.
It may not have been a limited company but the section below from the year ended 31 March 2016 accounts makes reference to R&A Properties LLP (Limited Liability Partnership); but I can find no such company registered with Companies House. Was it not registered, or registered in some other jurisdiction?
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One company I did unearth was R & A Secure Services Ltd, described on the Companies House website as a ‘non-trading company’ with Lovering as sole director. This was launched in September 2012, so chronologically it fits, but how?
The capture below is from the Company Check website. Jacobs can be disregarded, he’s a Company Formation Agent, but who or what is Francis Trust? And where’s Pickering?
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One company that Lovering has been involved with for some time is Lancehawk Ltd, of which he became a director in July 1999. And as this report from an Industrial Tribunal tells us, he was in fact managing director.
The report, about a bit of rumpy pumpy (was he shagging two of his staff!), also tells us that Lancehawk was trading as European Telecom Solutions. So I don’t understand why Lancehawk is still in business and a new company called European Telecom Solutions Ltd was formed 15 November 2017.
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By November 2009 the BBC was telling us that Thales UK was to equip or modify Warthog all-terrain armoured vehicles at Llangennech for use in Afghanistan. This is the “blue chip” company we were told about, the justification presumably for the curious purchase arrangements.
So it looks as if Lovering (plus Pickering and Preece?) bought the site specifically to accommodate Thales? (Whatever the answer, R & A Properties now seems to have finally done the decent thing and gone legit, forming R and A Properties Cardiff Ltd last month. Why ‘Cardiff’?)
Some would have us believe that Thales has moved out of Stradey Park, but I can find no report of such a departure, certainly not in the Welsh media. Though I did turn this up in the Herald. It suggests that Thales closed its Llangennech operation – or part of it – in late 2012 or early 2013.
Which might link with reports in February 2012 that Cassidian was moving to Llangennech. Cassidian merged with Airbus Military and Astrium in January 2014 to form Airbus Defence and Space, now a division of Airbus.
This would give us a third connection with the military-industrial complex. Though I can find no evidence of the Cassidian move ever materialising.
Though from a distance there is little documentary or other evidence of either Thales or Airbus having been in Llangennech. Come to that, the whole site might as well be a secret, what with it being owned by an unregistered company, or an individual, there being no website, and Google turning up no recent references to either company being at Llangennech.
Though Google Earth came up trumps with what might be a recent shot, suggesting that Thales is still in situ.
Courtesy of Google Earth, click to enlarge
Correction: The Google Earth image I’ve used there is from 2011. I am informed that Thales has long since slung its hook. Why was it not reported in the Welsh media?
UPDATE 23:25: The British Army withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014, which would clearly have reduced the demand for the Warthog All-Terrain vehicles assembled by Thales at Llangennech, and this might explain the closure.
It also suggests that despite all the bullshit and backslapping that attended Thales’ arrival in Llangennech it must have been known that the French visitor was never going to stay and put down roots.
However, this forum posting I stumbled upon suggests that other uses were found for Warthogs: “Jane’s military guide has reported that British Warthog vehicles will be transformed to serve as transporter vehicles for Thales Watchkeeper UAV”. ‘UAV’ being unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone. Which would make perfect sense.
Watchkeeper drones fly out of the base at Aberporth and they are none too reliable, five having crashed in recent years, one of them uncomfortably close to a school.
I’m convinced that drones out of Aberporth, or possibly Llanbedr, use darkness and cloud cover to fly up the Dysynni Valley along part of the ‘Mach Loop’. The constant noise can last half an hour or more. And recently I’ve had reports of the same issue around Cydweli, Glanyfferi and out over the sea.
Which means that Thales’ presence is still here, with Watchkeeper drones being transported on Warthog vehicles assembled at Llangennech. Overflying our country . . . and often crashing!
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HYDRO INDUSTRIES LTD
On 2 January 2013 Lovering and Preece became directors of Hydro Industries Ltd (originally Watertec Solutions Ltd and then Aggrelek Ltd), with Pickering joining them in November.
Watertec was Incorporated 2 September 2010 on the east side of Swansea, at the Ashmount Business Park . . . within spitting distance of Dawnus Construction Holdings Ltd (at the time known as Dawnus Construction Ltd).
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Is this propinquity a coincidence? I think not.
The address for Aggrelek Ltd changed to Stradey Park 13 July 2011, and it became Hydro Industries in December of that year. Hydro Industries becomes another Legsun, in that it seems to operate in a parallel financial universe, being heavily in debt but still able to satisfy charges and generally carrying on as if nothing is amiss.
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The founders of Hydro Industries, Philip and Janine Morgan of Gorseinon, presumably had some knowledge of the water industry, to judge by other companies with which they’ve been involved, and certain directors of these companies, such as Chris Stretton.
But I don’t know what knowledge of desalination processes, or water purification and disposal in the third world is possessed by Lovering, Pickering and Preece. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
For almost immediately Lovering, Preece and Pickering had their feet under the Hydro Industries boardroom table things started happening for them on a transatlantic level with First Minister Carwyn Jones jetting across the Pond to put in a word.
Now clearly, if Lovering, Preece and Pickering didn’t join Hydro Industries until January 2013 then they didn’t have time to have arranged the contract with T&T Salvage that was announced by Carwyn Jones in February. In fact, Carwyn Jones seems to have taken Hydro Industries Ltd under his wing. How many other small companies received such treatment?
You’ll see that at No 6 in the list is Airbus. Airbus is also mentioned along with Hydro Industries in the blurb for Carwyn Jones’s 2014 visit to the States. And I’ve seen the connection made elsewhere.
As with Thales locating to Llangennech the T&T contract was arranged by someone else, and Lovering and Preece were put into Hydro Industries to front the deal because they were ‘trusted’ . . . by someone. ‘Someone’ who could also pull Carwyn Jones’s strings.
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SWEET CHARITY?
Though as I told you in the previous post, the three amigos have now been joined (displaced?) by some very glitzy company on the board and among the shareholders of Hydro Industries.
Almost immediately Pickering had joined Lovering and Preece on the Hydro board we saw investment from Diane Briere de L’Isle, David Stevens and Heather Stevens.
As I explained in an earlier piece, Diane Marguerite Marie Briere de L’Isle is the French wife of Henry Englehardt the American founder of Admiral Insurance. So who are David and Heather Stevens?
They, it turns out, are behind the Waterloo Foundation, a name that some may think unfortunate or insensitive given the involvement of Mme. Englehardt. The Waterloo Foundation was begun in 2007 with a donation of Admiral Group plc shares to the (then) value of £99m.
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And it all makes sense, for “clean water” is listed among the charity’s ambitions under ‘World Development‘. Which is why I was surprised not to find Hydro Industries listed under ‘Investments‘ and ‘Wales’ because the Foundation has definitely invested in Hydro.
And after the investment came a series of convoluted share reclassifications and allocations. Diane Marguerite Marie Briere De L’isle is named on the Companies House website as the person ‘with significant control’ from 21 August 2017. Preece, Lovering and Pickering cease to have significant control on the same day.
It’s not inconceivable, given Hydro’s links with Thales, that Mme. Englehardt joined Hydro in order to represent France’s interests.
Certainly Mme. Englehardt became a director of Hydro and appointed others to eventually outnumber the three musketeers. Among these newcomers was Guto Harri, Welsh language journalist and former PR guru for Boris Johnson.
The boys are still there, but maybe just for window dressing.
Predictably, perhaps, the Waterloo Foundation is a Patron of The Prince’s Trust. And why not, for The Prince’s Trust is based at Stradey Park. And wouldn’t you know it, the Chief Operating Officer for Hydro is Brigadier Rick Libbey . . . who used to run the The Prince’s Trust in Wales!
The links with the British establishment just keep coming, and of course Libbey provides another to the military-industrial complex, such as we find throughout this saga.
Which is easily explained. Major powers exert influence through ‘soft power’, which can mean aid to third world countries that just happen to have valuable natural resources or are of strategic importance.
What could be more caring and philanthropic than providing clean drinking water?
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SUMMARY
Up until the autumn of 2018 everything seemed to be hunky-dory with Dawnus, Hydro Industries, Swansea University, Thales, Legsun, etc, and there were exciting plans in the pipeline.
Here we are, six months later, and it’s all fallen apart. Perhaps some of those involved were strung along, and once they’d outlived their usefulness they became dispensable.
So what are we left with? Well, there’s Hydro, which I believe to be a ‘front’ company for some agency of the UK state; and then there’s the remains of Dawnus, run by someone who is almost certainly co-operating with the same shadowy elements.
If I’m right, then hundreds of Welsh workers, sub-contractors and suppliers were shafted by the UK Government, which either engineered the collapse of Dawnus or else accepted it as collateral damage. But we’re Welsh, we’re used to being shafted and exploited.
What is unforgivable is that this damage was inflicted on Wales with the support of the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ and, especially, that of Carwyn Jones.
This piece was prompted by someone asking me if I’d read an article recently published on the Nation.Cymru website. I smiled to myself, and responded in the negative.
