I haven’t devoted a full piece to Bute Energy and the rest since August last year. Which is somewhat remiss, seeing as the plans are ongoing and causing great concern to communities across the land.

That said, maybe this offering is directed more at the general reader than those who follow Bute’s activities closely, or are involved with a particular campaign group, of which there are perhaps too many. (More on this later.)

Though I’ve had a gutsful of Bute and the other eco-scammers who’ve taken up more space on this blog than the diamond geezers and career criminals.

Yet they’re lauded in the media, have politicians in their back pocket, and the red carpet is rolled out for these exploitative interlopers.

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INTRO, RECAP

After a visit to the cellar, dusting off a few files, I think I’ve found my first reference to Bute. It was back in November 2018. In the piece, Corruption in the wind?

Though Bute first appeared via a connection with someone I’d already written about.

This pathfinder was Steven Radford. He was fronting for a major player named U + I in three wind farm projects: Bryn Blaen, near Llangurig; Rhoscrowther, down on the Haven; and Hendy, a few miles from Llandrindod.

U + I was soon taken over by Landsec; big shareholders in Landsec are BlackRock, Vanguard, Legal & General, Jupiter Asset Management.

In that November 2018 piece I wrote:

In September Radford branched out again with Bute Energy Ltd . . . in the electricity business, the production, transmission, distribution and trade of electricity to be exact.

What I didn’t know at the time was that the boys of Bute had all come from property company Parabola. And that the lead director of Bute, Oliver James Millican, is the son of Parabola boss, Peter John Millican.

The other Bute principals we’ve come to know are: Lawson Douglas Steele and Stuart Allan George. Barry Woods was a fourth departure from Parabola in November 2017. But Woods parted company with the others in September 2019.

Another name that crops up is John Reilly. Like those just named (apart from Millican) he has a company named ‘Windward’ followed by his initials. I can’t be sure if Reilly worked for Parabola, but he is now Project Manager for Bute. Like the others, he lives in Scotland.

These ‘personal’ companies all saw a massive boost in their values recently.

These figures might be accounted for by a payout from Grayling Capital LLP, which dissolved around that time. For Millican, Steele and George were Designated Members, and Reilly a Member. Another Member had been SuperSpAd and ‘Welsh’ Labour insider David James Taylor. (Mentioned a few times on this site.)

UPDATE: More plausibly, the windfall is explained here.

But that only throws up another question – where did the money come from that went into Grayling Capital?

Whatever the answer, that’s a lot of money for a group that has yet to put up a single turbine. Ask yourself, how does that ten grand for your village hall from a developer’s ‘community fund’ compare to sums like these?

Taylor also did well for himself. The clip below is from the accounts of Taylor’s company Moblake Ltd. A liquidator was appointed in April 2022 and Taylor rode off into the sunset with the 600k in his saddlebags.

The ultimate holding company for all the Bute entities is Windward Global Ltd. The sole director is Millican Jnr. The company was formed in May 2017 as DMWSL 864 Ltd and changed its name six months later, at the exact same time we are expected to believe the boss’s son and his mates turned their backs on Parabola.

Somehow, the Parabola-Bute crew made contact with Radford. Who joined Bute Energy Ltd in September 2018, less than a week after Oliver Millican. (The company changed its name to RSCO 3750 Ltd and folded in September 2023.)

How was this contact made? Why did Parabola turn its attention to wind turbines? And to Wales?

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PARABOLA-BUTE DISCOVERS WALES

But how did they ‘discover’ Wales? Were there introductions? To answer these questions I’ll begin with something substantive before flying a kite.

In the first piece, of November 2018, you’d have read a section – ‘Mystery Woman’ – in which I identified Anna McMorrin as a lobbyist for Hendy wind farm. She was then a Labour insider shacked up with a minister in the ‘Welsh Government’, and she went on to become the MP for Cardiff North in the June 2017 general election.

Seventeen months after McMorrin’s performance before Powys councillors, Steven Radford of Hendy wind farm teamed up with Parabola-Bute.

This pattern of Labour party involvement (ahem!) has been repeated in subsequent years. Most recently with Sophie Howe, former Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, who became a director of the new Bute Energy Ltd last month. (It switched names with RSCO 3750 Ltd.)

Labour party troughing is covered in many other posts on this site.

So we have the Labour party helping windfarm developers, but that doesn’t establish a connection for Radford with Millican and his pals. Yet people I’ve spoken with recently are convinced the key lies with Radford and Hendy Wind Farm Ltd.

And what a story of political corruption that was; done to help a project meet an OFGEN funding deadline, with one hurriedly erected turbine – that has never turned!

But even if Hendy is the key, that still doesn’t explain how Radford and the Bute gang met each other.

Here’s one possibility . . .

McMorrin was working for a company, Invicta Public Affairs, with branches in Glasgow and London, but its registered office is on the Gallowgate, not far from St James’ Park in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Parabola, despite having offices in Edinburgh and London, began life in Newcastle and still maintains a presence in a building it redeveloped near the Central Station.

I admit the Geordie connection is tenuous; yet while the Labour party link to both Radford and Bute is established, there is still no evidence it was the comrades who brought them together.

Though the Labour party is now so enmeshed with Parabola-Bute it might soon be difficult to disentangle them. What with individual party members involved and then the council pension fund investment. (Controlled by BlackRock.)

Plaid Cymru is also getting in on the climate scam. Sorry! that should read: saving the planet for future generations. In the form of an obscure Plaid loyalist from Ynys Môn named Carmen Smith.

After dabbling in student politics, working for politicos and leftist groups, Smith was given a made-up job with Bute in October 2023 – Advisor on Youth Governance! Her employer is named as Windward Global, the ultimate holding company for the Bute empire.

Next, she made it to the House of Lords when Plaid needed to replace retiring Lord Wigley. The election process was rigged in order to ignore members’ choice of former MP Elfyn Llwyd.

These shenanigans now give Bute a presence in the House of Lords.

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KLINGON AND A POSSIBLE RESTORATION TRAGEDY

As is often the case with planning permission – and perhaps especially in Wales – what is originally given consent is often very different to what is eventually built. ‘Changes’ and ‘modifications’ are made, which may or may not go through the planning process.

In the case of Bute Energy these now include, “bigger blades, higher substations, to cracking on before approval of any restoration plans. The local authorities, who told PEDW they have no resources to oversee any planning conditions, appear to be rubber stamping things“.

Never was rubber stamping more obvious than with this amendment submitted by Bute to Caerphilly council regarding Twyn Hywel wind farm. Fortunately, the council accepts correspondence in English, Welsh, and Klingon.

For it was indeed accepted.

In the quote I used just now you’ll have seen a reference to “restoration plans“. So let me explain what this is about.

After certain opencast mines came to the end of their working lives in southern Wales it was expected that the companies involved would – as promised – restore the sites to something close to their original state.

But, alas, when the time came for the restoration to begin – the companies involved had relocated to offshore tax havens.

In 2010, a company called Celtic Energy sold its opencast coalmines – with its restoration liabilities – for £1 apiece to a series of shell companies it had set up in the British Virgin Islands. Then the senior executives walked away with millions.

To avoid something similar happening with windfarms a number of people have submitted FoI requests to the ‘Welsh Government’ about site restoration, but I’ve yet to see a response that satisfies anyone.

UPDATE 02.10.2025: Here’s an example that I’ve just received from a reader. Natural Resources Wales says they can’t tell how much they demand for wind farm site restoration, because “this information is commercially sensitive“.

It’s now being suggested that wind turbines in Wales have an operational lifespan of 50 years. Below is a clip from Google AI, and here’s a link to a piece in Solar Power Portal which says, “Manmoel Wind will have an operational life span of 50 years“.

Obviously, no turbine lasts 50 years. A turbine is lucky to make 20, or 25. So people who’ve seen that 50 year figure assume the turbines will be replaced at some stage.

Yet the extended lifespan claim appears again in this response from Bute to a question from a concerned local resident:

Quite frankly, I believe that ten years from now few new (or replacement) turbines will be going up. People are no longer listening to the Swedish doom goblin and her Globalist masters. Reality is kicking in.

So the question remains: with the bubble soon to burst, why are turbines going up today, or tomorrow, being given operational lifespans of 40 or 50 years?

Could it be because developers have an arrangement with politicians and planners that restoration of a site begins when the agreed operational lifespan is up? Even if the turbines had long ago stopped working. Or had even been removed?

My belief is that restoration costs should be paid up front, before a single turbine is erected, and the money ring-fenced so politicians can’t get their grubby paws on it. Furthermore, the restoration costs must not be limited to the visual. There must be enough money deposited to pay for the removal and disposal of the vast concrete bases in which every turbine stands.

Questions need to be asked about this extended operational lifespan. And whether it will be linked with site restoration.

UPDATE 12.10.2025: I should add that being ‘imaginative’ with a project’s lifespan might encourage hesitant investors. And it will be used by politicians spouting ‘future generations’ bollocks to grant planning permission.

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THE PYLON RUNS

Clearly, the hundreds of wind turbines planned for remote upland areas of Wales are a long way from the eventual consumers in England. For that’s where it’s going. (Ignore bullshit like, “powering seven million Welsh homes“.)

Below you’ll see two maps that I hope will help explain the position.

On the left is a map produced by the ‘Welsh Government’ in its Future Wales The National Plan 2040 (update), showing the designated areas for wind power. On the right, a map produced by CPRW (here), adding areas for solar power and associated infrastructure including pylon routes.

Because, clearly, there will be a need for pylons and overhead power lines to run from the windfarms to where they can connect with the grid. Though in environmentally sensitive (or politically favoured) sections the cabling might be underground.

In the southern half of the country this means a run from around Aberedw, east of Llandrindod, down to Builth, and then down Dyffryn Tywi to Llandyfaelog, south of Carmarthen. The other southern line runs from the wild country east of Lampeter – projects I covered in this piece – following the Teifi before branching off south from somewhere near Llandysul.

In the northern section, the run starts near Llangurig, then runs north before turning north east to its destination at Lower Frankton in Shropshire. Though for some reason we were originally told it ended in ‘Chirk’.

Perhaps we were supposed to think it would supply Wrecsam and Deeside.

This simple map of the grid in Wales will also help as it shows most of the turbines planned are going up in areas a long way from that grid.

Most electricity in Wales is generated by Pembroke power station in the far south west. The line then runs east, supplying much of the urban south, before taking power over the border.

The loop in the north is, I suspect, accounted for by the decommissioned nuclear power stations at Wylfa and Trawsfynydd.

Let’s conclude this section by focusing on an area just mentioned, Twm Siôn Cati country. There’s a very active group opposing the three projects we’ve heard about (there may be more to come), and there was a public meeting last month.

Here’s a report from the Western Mail. Here in pdf format.

The meeting was held in Pumsaint because, as I explained in the piece I linked to earlier, the blades and turbines will need to be transported from Pumsaint up country, and over the 2,500 acres of the National Trust’s Dolaucothi estate.

For some reason the NT is coy about giving out information about its involvement with wind farm developers.

To add to the air of mystery, I’m informed that prior to the Pumsaint meeting local Plaid worthies met with Bute representatives at the Falcondale Hotel, just a mile or so north east of Lampeter. Is this true?

If so, what did they discuss? More peerages?

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ODDS AND ENDS

I’ve been writing about wind farms for so long, and more keep appearing, that I was almost on the point of giving up. But like I say, as truth dawns, and the costs mount, the bubble will eventually burst.

So I’ll stick with it, and give a few random thoughts. First, something that’s been a stone in my shoe for a while. Maybe someone out there can help.

It’s a company called Storagefolk Ltd. The sole director is Oliver Millican, and ownership traces back to super holding company Windward Global, where all the shares are owned by Millican.

Now, this company was formed September 2017; it seems to do nothing, yet it’s kept alive, so I must assume there’s a reason for its existence. But what?

Answers on a postcard . . .

Returning to electricity transmission . . . in a belated attempt to salvage its reputation the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ set up Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru. Which, to date, has achieved virtually nothing beyond virtue signalling.

And of course, costing us money.

Those clowns in Corruption Bay had over two decades to ensure that, if we had no alternative but to participate, that at least Wales benefitted from this climate scam. But they did nothing beyond pimping Wales out to any green con artists who slunk into view.

Bute has also set up a distribution company, Green Gen Cymru (GGC). Which is planning the pylon runs we looked at earlier. Though this is a joint venture with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, a major funder for Bute.

The GCC chairman is Bleddyn Phillips, former chairman of London Welsh Rugby Club, who worked in Russia when his wife, Dame Anne Pringle, was ambassador.

For many year Phillips was Global Head of Oil and Gas for multinational lawyers Clifford Chance LLP. These are not the kind of lawyers you go to if Plod arrests you for hurty words on X. We are talking big, big money here. Billions.

Consequently, Phillips must know many wealthy investors in the energy field from his globetrotting days. I wonder if any of them are interested in Green Gen Cymru?

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CONCLUSION

I don’t wish to name groups or individuals, but I believe the fight against these various – but linked – plans is too fragmented. A certain level of unity is needed. Or at the very least, co-operation.

Yet it must also be kept local.

By which I mean, involve local people, farmers and others with a stake in the country. At all costs avoid creating the impression that the only people opposing wind turbines and pylons are well-heeled nimbys who’ve moved into the area.

Selfish buggers who are now, “denying locals thousands of well-paid jobs“.

Because that’s the kind of lie those opposing you – politicians and ‘developers’ – will use to divide and discredit you.

And finally, don’t trust political parties that support Net Zero, wind farms and all the rest. Politicians with constituencies or council areas threatened by the projects of Bute and others are in trouble, and they know it.

So they’re trying to ride two horses. But only succeeding in coming across as more two-faced than usual. It is not a pretty sight.

Say, “Thank you very much for your kind offer of advice and assistance” – then help them through the door. Whether you open the door is entirely up to you.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025