The Tramshed, The Loans, The Leases, The Lord

This piece is about corruption and mutual back-scratching in and around the Labour party. ‘So what’s new?’, you ask. Well, this piece introduces some new faces, and connections that may surprise you.

And with an election on July 4, I will take any and every opportunity to put the boot into Labour and its fellow-travellers.

My original intention was to write about the eco-shriekers at Wales Environmental Link (WEL). In particular, Natalie Buttriss, formerly of the attempted land grab Summit to Sea; and Rachel Sharp who, in November 2021, lied to Senedd Members about Welsh farmers using growth hormones.

Sharp’s been joined at the (officially non-existent) Wildlife Trusts Wales by Extinction Rebellion’s Tim Birch, a real extremist who was chased out of Derbyshire.

Then I saw that WEL is now based at ‘Tramsheds Tech Ltd, Unit D, Tramshed, Pendyris Street, Cardiff CF11 6BH’. So I made a quick delve (as you do) and decided there was a bigger and fresher story at the Tramsheds.

Fresher, because I haven’t written about it before.

And that explains what you’re about to read.

THE TRAMSHED

I’d seen the name a few times, but it meant little to me. As far as I could tell it was one of those outfits that rents out office space by the day or the week. Here’s a link to the Tramshed website, which might help.

Vaughan Gething launched his leadership campaign from Tramsheds’ Newport base. And why not? For as the Pembrokeshire Herald reminded us, it had received ‘Welsh Government’ funding through the Soft Landing programme. And then returned the favour with a £3,000 non-cash donation to Gething’s campaign.

Here’s the Companies House entry, and at the time of writing compulsory strike-off action was in progress because the accounts were almost two months overdue.

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One of the two charges against Tramsheds Tech is a loan from Finance Wales Investments (since re-named the Development Bank of Wales) in July 2017.

The Tramsheds Tech directors are Louise Margaret Harris, CEO and co-founder, Labour peer Lord Evan Mervyn Davies aka Lord Abersoch, Simon John Dixon, and Thomas Gwyn Davies (who I take to be Abersoch’s son).

Staying with the People tab, we see that control over Tramsheds is exercised by Tramsheds Holdings Ltd.

Here’s the Companies House entry for Tramsheds (Holdings) Ltd. You’ll see the same directors as for Tramsheds Tech.

Harris is also a director of a company based at Tramsheds, Partneriaid Oleia Cyf, along with media types Huw Eurig Davies and Kevin Tame. Until January this year, control of the company was exercised by Tramsheds Tech, before passing to Davies and Tame.

Let’s go back to Tramsheds (Holdings) Ltd, the parent company of Tramsheds Tech.

When it began life, in March 2021, all 300 shares were held by Lord Davies. The situation as reported March 27 was what you see below. Though Huw Eurig Davies ceased being a director 28 February, and Mark Prosser John was never a director.

To save you reaching for the abacus . . . the other four combined hold one share more than the noble lord.

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I can’t tell you a lot about Mark John, but he was a director at Tramsheds Tech Ltd until 29 November 2023. In fact, he was the co-founder with Louise Margaret Harris.

John appears to be another media type.

The only company he’s involved with now is BLC (Wales) Ltd, based at Tramsheds Tech, where the other director (and secretary) is Louise Margaret Harris; accounts are overdue with Companies House, and the most recently filed accounts do not paint a rosy picture.

So, we have directors of what appear to be linked companies, all based in and connected with the old Tramshed on Pendyris Street.

‘THE SCOURGE OF LEASEHOLD’ (AS LABOUR REGULARLY SAYS)

Inevitably (cos I’m a nosy bugger), I got to wondering who owns the Tramsheds building. And so I popped over to the Land Registry website for the title document and plan for the site. You’ll see that it’s owned by Cardiff council.

Or to be absolutely clear, Cardiff council owns the freehold, but an agreement was entered into, in December 2014, to lease the building to DS Properties (Pontypridd) Ltd for 999 years.

But after the appointment of an Administrator in February 2018, this company was finally dissolved in June last year. At the end, ownership lay with DS Holdings (Penarth) Ltd. So that’s our next stop.

DS Holdings (Penarth) Ltd is owned by Simon Malcolm Baston, the sole director. He has a number of companies that specialise in renovating and converting old buildings, most of which have been taken over by the local council, which is always Labour controlled.

An example would be the old Albert Hall cinema in Swansea. (I remember the uniformed doorman!) Baston got the money for that project from The Welsh Ministers. And Baston’s no stranger to Swansea. He’s been getting contracts in my home town for at least 20 years.

And just up town, Tramshed Tech is involved in the renovation of the Palace Theatre. Though I suggest that the picture below is misleading.

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Gwenno Jones donned a hi viz jacket and a hard hat for a photo op, otherwise she’s togged up for a night out.

Tramshed Tech will be running the revamped Palace when it’s completed by Simon Baston and DS Holdings (Penarth) Ltd, or whoever’s actually doing the work.

There may even be local firms getting a look in!

To recap: the Tramshed building is owned by Cardiff council. It was leased late in 2014 / early 2015 to DS Properties (Pontypridd) Ltd, which was owned by another Simon Baston company DS Holdings (Penarth) Ltd.

Baston duly renovated the Tramshed, and converted much of the building into flats. These flats – 31 by my count – were then sold on 250-year leases in 2016.

Though the music venue at the Tramsheds was leased for just 15 years to Alchemy Tramshed Ltd, which used a Cardiff address. This company was taken over in November and December 2019 by Australian company TEG Venues UK Ltd.

The Tramshed Café and the Dance Studio were also leased for 15 years.

Then, in May 2021, the site, or part of it, seems to have been sub-leased for £2,850,000, to Tramsheds Cardiff Ltd. Scroll down on the title doc for the title numbers of the individual leases. And, at the bottom, the plan of the site.

Here’s the other title involved in the same deal. For a very narrow strip of land, probably a pathway.

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Tramsheds Cardiff Ltd is another company of Labour peer, Lord Davies. and owned by Tramsheds (Holdings) Ltd, which we looked at earlier. The purchase of the Tramshed leases was financed with a loan from the Principality Building Society.

We seem to have come full circle. But what have we learnt? Let’s go through it.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Wherever we look in this story, which takes us across south Wales, we find ourselves dealing with former commercial or industrial properties owned by Labour-run councils.

I’ve focused on the assorted ‘DS’ entities and linked outfits, but there may be other companies in the same business, with other buildings. But I just don’t have the time or the resources to check.

What I also found to be interesting was that the outstanding loans against DS Holdings (Penarth) Ltd are with: Swansea council (Labour), Cardiff council (Labour), Welsh Ministers, Principality Building Society, and the ‘Welsh Government’-controlled Development Bank of Wales.

Another lender was the Julian Hodge Bank in Cardiff. For younger readers . . .

Hodge was a big man in Cardiff, very pally with Jim Callaghan Labour MP, and PM, and George Thomas, another of the City’s Labour MPs, who went on to become Lord Tonypandy. They had hopes of Hodge’s Commercial Bank of Wales becoming a recognised bank like Lloyds or Barclays, but the regulators knocked it back.

L to R: Julian Hodge with Jim Callaghan; The Rhuddlan penny, that was used as the bank’s logo; George Thomas with Julian Hodge. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The whole episode is explained in this February 2016 issue of Rebecca, that reprints an article from the spring of 1977.

Even so, The Hodge Bank still operates, and remains very close to the Labour party.

Some of the other DS companies, ones I haven’t mentioned, such as DS Properties (Goods Shed) Ltd, have enjoyed loans from the Monmouthshire Building Society.

Now I’m not saying that this building society is tied to the Labour party. But I will point out that when the ‘Welsh Government’ was toying with the idea of Banc Cambria, it was the Monmouthshire Building Society involved.

What’s beyond doubt is that behind all the DS companies is Simon Baston, and so it’s reasonable to assume that – like Vaughan Gething’s benefactor, David Neal – Baston looks favourably upon and is in turn favoured by Labour.

And as I said earlier, on January 16 Gething launched his leadership campaign in Tramshed Tech’s Newport operation. I quote the South Wales Argus: ‘He kicked off his speech by thanking Tramshed Tech for hosting him in “this fantastic space they’ve created in the heart of Newport“.

And to complete the image of comradely solidarity, the Count of Abbasock has returned to the land of his fathers. After apparently turning his back on Wales at an early age, for none of his other companies has any connection with his homeland.

So why has the Tramshed drawn him back? And will his reawakened interest end with the Tramshed, or will it expand?

We’ve seen the charges against Tramshed Tech but I’m certain there’s other money coming in that might not even be shown in the accounts. (When they’re filed.) For example, I unearthed this article on UKTN about money coming from the British Business Bank.

I also found the section below in this Cardiff council document. Another £250,000.

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How many more hand-outs have there been from local authorities, the ‘Welsh Government’ and other sources that we don’t know about?

To help you take it all in here’s a small table of the main events in a timeline.

UPDATE: How did I miss this! I am indebted to Born Guessing @drakefraud for this reminder from WalesOnline that Lord Davies’s wife dropped £21,600 into Vaughan Gething’s campaign war chest.

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What an odd amount. What currency was the donation made in, euros, dollars, or even roubles? Do the rules say owt about donations from beyond this Scepter’d Isle?

FINAL THOUGHTS

As I’ve suggested, The Tramshed gets a lot of positive coverage in our uncritical media; bright young things being innovative and ground-breaking, etc., etc.

And yet, maybe that’s just froth, for the real business and the real money may be in the leases for the 31 flats, and the café, and of course the 1,ooo capacity music venue.

Welcome to socialist Wales 2024. The circular economy, benefitting those lucky enough to be in the ‘circle’. Where there’s no private investment, and everything is state funded, but only those close to the ruling party can benefit. So that Tramsheds can play ‘diversity’ games, and provide a base for outfits like Wales Environmental Link, favoured by the regime because it works to destroy Welsh farming.

And as we’ve seen in this Tramshed saga, Labour, the party that has promised so often to do away with leasehold, will actually encourage and extend the use of leasehold – when Labour insiders benefit.

Devolution has been a disaster. And it couldn’t be much better under a different party. To stamp your little feet and yell that Wales should be a full-blown Marxist state suggests to the adults in the room that it might be past your bed-time.

And yet, in the election on July 4, Labour will win more Welsh seats than any other party. A painful reminder that I belong to a nation with too many fuckwits.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Neighbours From Hell

The first responsibility of any government is the protection of its people, from threats internal and external. Yet with its ‘no border’ policy not only is the ‘Welsh’ Government putting at risk the survival of Welsh identity, it also risks the lives of individuals, too many of whom have died at the hands of criminals who would not have been allowed entry to any country with a government mindful of its primary responsibility.

doguedebordeauxZygosSo in this post I shall deal with some of the more notorious cases from recent years. Or rather, just those I happen to have noticed, or were brought to my attention. Had any of these individuals you’ll read about below sought entry to Canada or Australia they would have been laughed at, and then turned back to England.

First, and before getting down to the gruesome and the repulsive, let’s look at some less serious cases, some almost humorous. Such as the woman in this story, who is obviously some kind of nutter drawn to large and aggressive dogs that she clearly cannot control. Which explains why, for a while, she wrought havoc in the corner of Ynys Môn where she lived. In addition to the two American bulldogs mentioned in the link, she also kept a Dogue de Bordeaux aka Bordeaux Mastiff or French Mastiff. (Shown left.) All nice cuddly poochie-woochies.

UPDATE 06.05.2015: The woman at the centre of this story may have had good reason to be in Wales, and in need of ferocious dogs. For as this report tells us she was a central character in a particularly brutal murder.

UPDATE 29.09.2015: She has now been jailed for 21 months.

Staying with animals, here’s the case of a couple who moved from the south east of England to a former pub in Gilfach Goch, where they kept animals in appalling conditions. When asked why they kept so many animals, suffering because they were obviously incapable of looking after them, the husband simply replied, “Why not?”.

Or how about Reginald Gill, who claimed he could cure women of cancer by groping them. Then there was Heather Stokes, who shouted “Welsh bastards” at a group of workmen who had the temerity to slow her regal progress. More recently we have had a case of four hippy women living near Tregaron charged with preventing the lawful and decent burial of a man who had been dead for four and a half years in order to keep claiming his disability allowance and pension credits. One of the accused is the deceased’s wife! We can safely assume that the late – though regrettably unburied – Geoffrey StuBatley Residencerdey, was a lot lighter than the 880 pound teenager who was moved from Kent to Aberdare. It took thirty people to get her from her social housing property into the ambulance when she needed to visit her local hospital. Now we must move on to the more serious cases.

One I dealt with a couple of years ago was that of Colin Batley, paedophile and English patriot. His sexual tastes were known before he came to Wales, they may have been the reason he and his gang left London, but Grwp Gwalia Cyf of Swansea was quite happy to house these creatures and to inflict them on Kidwelly. Despite being warned of his behaviour in 2002 Carmarthenshire social services did nothing. Here are some more peripatetic pervs, this time from Wolverhampton. A father and son act, Barry Ford and Craig McKellar, jailed at Mold Crown court last December for a total of 28 years. Here’s another, named Brian Sturley from London; this bastard was molesting kids in Swansea.

SeabridgesA really weird, and disturbing case, is that of a couple living in Ceredigion. Glynn and Julie Seabridge (left) are charged with neglecting their eight-year-old son so badly that he died of scurvy. Who, in Western Europe, dies of scurvy in the twenty-first century! (Update January 29, 2015.) What no one is saying is that these two are not Cardis at all. If Seabridgemy information is correct, they almost certainly moved from Stoke-on-Trent (see right, click to enlarge). And if other reports reaching me are correct, then the Potteries seems to be the source of an increasing number of our problems. Note the walking sticks in the photo. It’s amazing how many of these bastards turn up for court appearances sporting walking sticks or crutches. Are judges or juries fooled by this? Now we must move up a level, for regretably we also have to suffer an influx of murderers.

George Johnson (below left) was jailed in Wolverhampton in 1986 after killing someone in their own home for just £3. Some time after being released he moved to Rhyl (where else?) and there –George Johnson high on drugs in 2011 – he killed an eighty-nine-year-old woman for £25. Another avoidable tragedy was the rape and murder of sixty-seven-year-old Irene Lawless in Llanllwni, Carmarthenshire in 2011 by Darren Jackson of Kent..

More recently Wales received unwanted global publicity over the murder of little April Jones of Machynlleth. The media tended to overlook the fact that Mark Bridger was born in Surrey, the son of a London cop, and moved to Wales after getting into trouble over possession of a firearm, theft, and obtaining property by deception. It seems he was packed off to Wales, where no one knew him, to ‘make a fresh start’. I’ve known a few like him – camouflage clothing, they usually carry a knife, and tell stories of having served in the SAS or the Foreign Legion. Bullshitting weirdoes no country should ever allow in. But it seems most towns and villages in rural Wales nowadays have their resident nutter in combat trousers.

Finally, in recent days we’ve been reading about the tragedy of three generations of the same family killed by Carl Mills, an alcoholic psycopath from Manchester who decided to give himself a change of scenery in Cwmbran. Perhaps another ‘fresh start’. Read the reports. Did no one realise the danger these people were in from this unhinged, alcoholic degenerate? Take a look at him – he could have stepped straight out of Deliverance! (‘Is that Central Casting? – send me a weird, inbred-looking hillbilly type’.) Or am I being my usual intolerant, judgemental and Carl Millsreactionary self? Well, if any smug leftie out there is nodding in agreement, he or she might care to remind themselves that before this bastard killed three generations, including his own daughter, he even threatened to dig up the child’s stillborn twin. This is one sick fucker!

What have all the misfits, paedophiles and murderers involved in these recent cases got in common? Answer: none of them had any good reason for being in Wales. Many were brought here or encouraged to move here by social housing providers, unscrupulous private landlords or other ‘agencies’. Or simply because Wales is a soft touch. For these people making a fresh start does not mean reforming, it does not mean changing their ways, it simply means the luxury of being able to carry on with the same behaviour in communities where they aren’t known. Which is bad enough, but why are there agencies in Wales helping them?

We must have more control over who comes to Wales because it has now become, quite literally, a matter of life or death. People are being killed, children are being raped, communities are being disrupted and made to live in fear, because the ‘Welsh’ Government is failing in its primary responsibility to the Welsh people.

The first scumbag, Frederick Lawlor, is both a murderer and a paedophile. After killing his partner in Rochdale, and burying her body in the cellar of the house they shared, he moved to Abergele, where he used a 13-year-old-girl for sex with dozens of men. It’s unclear if he came to Wales of his own volition, but the anonymity provided by the north coast’s ‘fluid’ population is a big attraction for individuals like Lawlor and the agencies looking to relocate (i.e. dump) dangerous individuals.

Among those convicted for abusing the girl was Freemason Raymond Ketland, who claimed to have been asked, by a fellow Mason in the group already abusing the girl, “do you want to have a bit of fun?” Ketland is yet another who’d recently moved to the north coast, but he hadn’t been relocated by any agency, for Ketland was a former Birmingham detective. Ketland takes us into the murky and constantly overlapping worlds of Freemasonry and the police, dealt with extensively by Paddy French at Rebecca.

Moving down to Ceredigion, we find David Thomas Clapton. In order to get near children Clapton set up a charity, Harvest Trust, and arranged holidays for English kids in the Welsh countryside. To show his love for children, Clapton also became a foster parent, accepted as such by Cyngor Ceredigion. One worry here is that in just a few years Harvest Trust received hundreds of thousands of pounds in grants and donations. From where? The Cambrian News article I link with is wrong when it says that Harvest Trust sent no accounts to the Charity Commission  after 2009, here’s a link to the 2011 accounts.

Finally (until the next update) we shall look at the case of Gavin Benit who, as the prosecution lawyer said at his trial, “likes to have sex with under-age girls”. This little ‘weakness’ first attracted the attention of the police while Benit was living in his native Oldham. Although his offences against a 13-year-old girl took place there, by the time he came to trial in Manchester, in September 2008, Benit had moved to Colwyn Bay. He was sentenced to four years in prison. This month he was sentGavin Benitenced at Caernarfon Crown Court to 10 years for raping a 15-year-old girl in Colwyn Bay. Or as BBC Wales says: “The rape took place at a Colwyn Bay hotel where he was placed in a flat”. “Placed in a flat” by whom? My guess is the Probation Service (for Englandandwales). I further speculate that the Probation Service moved him to Bae Colwyn some time between his arrest and sentencing in 2008.

At least the BBC had the balls to say that Benit had been “placed” in Colwyn Bay, but other elements of the ‘Welsh’ media either infer that the guilty are Welsh, or state it outright! Take the Daily Post, which said that Benit is “from Rhyl”, and also mentioned the Colwyn Bay connection. Yet while the Daily Post also mentioned Benit’s previous conviction it refused to say that this was in Manchester, and that Benit was then living in Oldham. Worse, is this coverage from Trinity Mirror’s WalesOnline which, in reporting the 2006 convictions of four others involved in the Lawlor case, begins thus, “Four more Welsh monsters are facing jail . . . “. Looking at the names of the four men convicted, one, from Wrecsam, is clearly Welsh . . . but the other three, from Prestatyn, Colwyn Bay and Rhyl? WalesOnline has no way of knowing their nationality, so why call them Welsh?

Scumbag ExpressEven though it was established in court that Lawlor, Benit, et al are English the ‘Welsh’ media are not allowed to report that fact because in colonial Wales the description ‘English’ can only be used in positive contexts. The only exception, or ‘safety-valve’, is the sporting arena or some other triviality. Among the other directives for our colonial media is putting the best possible gloss on the English connection. This of course is difficult in a third world country unless we natives are blamed for all that’s wrong and our masters given credit for the little that is good. The dumping of English criminals in Wales shows how this works in practice. 1/ Ignore the issue. 2/ When cases come to court report on them but never mention the English origins of the convicted, and certainly not the routes by which they arrived in Wales. 3/ If you really want to go for broke, then – and with no evidence beyond addresses – describe the convicted perverts as Welsh – better yet, “Welsh monsters”.

The Housing (Wales) Bill I have dealt with in my most recent posts will, if implemented, make the existing situation even worse. For it forces Welsh housing associations into accepting any murderous, child molesting scumbag from across the border. (Though many of them need no persuasion.) The problems the north coast has experienced up to now will be nothing compared to what the Bill promises. It will be time to rename the Costa Geriatrica the Costa del Pervert.

UPDATE 25.01.14:

The case of London gangster Joland Giwa turning up in Newport seems to have surprised a lot of people, including local MPs and others. It’s as if they were unaware that hundreds, possibly thousands, of murderers, paedophiles, ex-cons, substance abusers, etc., arJoland Giwae either being encouraged to move to Wales or being given no choice in the matter and dumped here. Here are a few other cases I’ve noted since I wrote the original post. (Though before moving on, let me make it clear that, unlike others dealt with in this post, I am not aware that Mr Giwa has committed any offences in Wales.)

UPDATE 19.06.2015: Joland Giwa has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for robbing a Newport bookmaker’s office. Despite it all, I feel a certain sympathy for the boy (unlike the others dealt with here), I don’t think he ever had a chance to make more of his life. We are no nearer knowing who decided to move him to Wales.