Over three years ago, with ‘Gilestone: Thinking Outside The Box‘, I suggested that the ‘Welsh Government’s controversial £4.25m purchase of Gilestone farm is about the transfer of water.
Much of what follows may look, superficially, like a rehash of that earlier piece; if so, it’s because that’s unavoidable in bringing the story up to date.
But there is more evidence. Which convinces me I was right.
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THE BACKGROUND
We’ll start by looking at what I think are the major milestones in this saga, in the order they happened.
1/ The Thomas family, who owned Gilestone pre-2010, had problems with the (then) Brecon Beacons National Park. They felt hounded. It cost them a lot of money to fight officialdom, and resulted in them selling up in October 2010.
(A curious feature of the business was that the solicitor acting for the Park was a Julie James. Who, in May 2011, became the Labour Assembly Member for Swansea West.)
2/ Next, seemingly out of the blue, a buyer in the form of Charles Weston turned up. He bought Gilestone for £900,000 through his company Sharpness and Severn Transport Ltd, re-named CWW Farming Ltd in November 2019. (Though the title document I’ve linked to does not cover all the Gilestone land.)
(Sharpness, Bristol, Newport, and Cardiff, are the major ports on the upper Severn estuary.)
3/ In March 2018 Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) organised a trip to Wales for representatives of the Watershed Agricultural Council based in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. This is the body responsible for keeping the Big Apple’s water supply up to standard. This visit was reciprocated in October 2019, when a party from the Beacons visited the Catskills.
(Which meant DCWW was studying a model under which a rural catchment area supplied water to a metropolis some 100 miles away.)
4/ This link resulted in DCWW setting up the Brecon Beacons Mega Catchment (BBMC). Though apart from the change of name to Bannau Brycheiniog I can’t see much recent activity on the website. There’s been nothing on the Facebook page since July 2022 and the Twitter/X account has been closed.
Next, in May 2020, the Beacons Water Group CIC (BWG) was launched.
The Beacons Water Group was established under Welsh Water’s Bannau Brycheiniog Mega Catchment initiative (BBMC), our landscape-scale approach to safeguarding our drinking water sources now and for the future.
Among the founders we find Weston of Gilestone and his next-door neighbour across the River Usk. (Weston left BWG in October 2022.)
BWG definitely enjoys political support. As does DCWW, which seems to get a free pass from the ‘Welsh Government’ and ‘environmental’ groups when it comes to river pollution, with farmers copping all the blame. One director, Hugh Martineau, was an ‘advisor’ with Coleg Soros in Talgarth.
5/ In March 2022 the ‘Welsh Government’ bought Gilestone farm for £4.25m. The reason given was to allow the Green Man Festival to expand from its Glanusk Estate site.
OK, that’s enough background. Let’s try to put meat on the bones and get up to date with other developments and findings.
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FILLING IT OUT, RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
What I suggested back in October 2022 was that the key to understanding the purchase of Gilestone might lie in the proximity of, on the one side, the River Usk, and the other side, The Monmouthshire and Breconshire canal.
Even so, this in itself tells you little. For it to make sense we need to link this abundance of H2O in Wales to southern England running dry of the stuff.
And let’s remember that, in addition to the river and the canal, Gilestone is just a couple of kilometres from Llangorse Lake to the north east and the same distance from Talybont reservoir to the south west.
The reservoir already connects with the Usk very near to Gilestone. It would be relatively simple to connect the lake.
I explain this because taking water from Wales has long been a favoured option to meet the increasing shortages in southern England. Boris Johnson talked about it in 2011. Johnson’s name was invoked in August 2022 in renewed calls for a national water grid.
As Nation.Cymru put it, quoting the Daily Mail:
Senior Conservatives are floating the idea of a ‘Great Boris Canal’ named after the outgoing Prime Minister to transfer water from the north of Wales to the south of England.
Though this plan has water from Llyn Efyrnwy diverted into the river and then into the Severn just over the border. As this Guardian article from March 2023 explains.
The “Cotswold canals” mentioned must be the Thames and Severn Canal, currently being restored.
Alternatively, the water will be piped straight into the Severn. Then it will be abstracted lower down, either at Deerhurst, north east of Cheltenham, or near to Sharpness.
Which serves to remind us that Charles Weston bought Gilestone farm in the name of Sharpness and Severn Transport Ltd, based in Sharpness docks. Where the Gloucester and Sharpness canal begins, connecting with the Thames and Severn canal in Gloucester.
It seems like every which way we turn in the Gilestone saga we hit water.
Taking us further and further away from farming and music festivals.
While the plan to transfer water from Wales to southern England has been mooted for decades, one reason for increased urgency in recent years is the planned growth in the numbers of AI data centres.
But it’s not just London and the south of England affected, there are other areas that will need much more water. Such as Cambridge, where there are (somewhat vague) plans for a ‘Forest City‘ of one million people.
One of those behind the plan, while admitting that water from Wales is a serious option, fears we Welsh are a bit touchy about the subject. Us!
Maybe that’s why the talk is of using rivers and canals. Perhaps some people think we’ll be too stupid to notice.
Having mentioned AI data centres, it’s worth remembering we have them in Wales, too. Especially around Newport and Cardiff. With more planned. Let’s get back to Gilestone.
We’ve seen that the River Usk and the Monmouthshire and Breconshire canal flow over or close by the property. Both waterways then run in a southeasterly direction towards Newport and the Bristol Channel.
My original thinking was that water could be transferred in either direction, whichever best suited the purpose of the exercise at any given time. But the canal only runs to Cwmbran, and is now effectively banned from taking water from the river.
As this piece from the Brecon & Radnor Express last month explains:
Earlier this year, Natural Resources Wales imposed new restrictions on the canal’s long-standing abstraction licence from the River Usk. It means that during periods of low water, the canal is no longer permitted to draw water from the river – a supply it has relied on for more than a century.
This has affected those who rely on the canal for their livelihoods, largely in the tourism businesses. Which seems to have resulted in intervention by the ‘Welsh Government’ with what looks like compensation.
With £5m announced in July. And what appears to be further funding announced earlier this month.
It seems clear that the flow of water in the Usk is a priority, and must be safeguarded.
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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Earlier I said that Charles Weston of Sharpness & Severn Transport had turned up at Gilestone out of blue. Perhaps I made him sound like a wraith appearing from nowhere. Which would be misleading.
Because before buying Gilestone Weston had, in 2004, bought 182 acres at Tan-y-fedw, south of Sennybridge. This sits on Afon Crai, which runs into the reservoir a few kilometres south.
And as AI Overview says of the reservoir: ” . . . much of its water is diverted to the Swansea Valley, while the remainder flows down to meet the Usk”.
Four years later he bought 76 acres at Allt-fechan, a couple of kilometres north west of Brecon. This holding stands on Ysgir Fechan, which runs into Afon Ysgir, which runs a few more kilometres into . . . the Usk.
Having received its orders from London the ‘Welsh Government’ plays its loyal part in this scheme. We see politicos, DCWW, and Natural Resources Wales, all working towards the objective . . . without being able to say what they’re really up to.
With the ‘environmental’ lobby chipping in. Remember Gail Davies-Walsh, former employee of DCWW, now of front organisation Afonydd Cymru, which shields the water company from criticism by blaming farmers for all river pollution?
Re-acquaint yourself with Gail by scrolling down in this piece from three years ago. Read her contribution to this article from March this year.
In the very same building in Talgarth where Afonydd Cymru is based we find the cross-border Wye and Usk Foundation, with its staff of 34 and its considerable income. Roughly half the grant money comes from that generous old soul, “Other“.
Ah! sweet Talgarth. Home of that noted and venerable seat of learning – Coleg Soros.
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Finally . . . We know there’s a plan to take water from Llyn Efyrnwy, into the Severn, and then, via pipe and canal, to the Thames. I believe there’s a wider plan that includes the Usk, Wye, and other sources. And this may be where Gilestone fits.
It would be relatively simple to connect Usk and Wye to the plan shown above. It would then be a multi-source option less likely to draw attention and criticism. For as Severn Trent is keen to stress (my emphasis):
This will be using water that is currently taken from Vyrnwy and occasionally redistributed elsewhere. No additional water will be taken from Wales.
This, “some from here, some from there” approach, with no valleys drowned, will avoid another Tryweryn.
And seeing as Usk and Wye are within Dŵr Cymru’s territory, it explains the Catskills connection, Mega Catchment and Beacons Water Group. Why else would DCWW study how a hilly rural area supplies water to a metropolis 100 miles away?
Another factor worth considering is flooding. The existing wind farms on hills above the Severn and its tributaries cause greater run-off of rainwater, increasing the risk of flooding. With more windfarms planned, this risk will only increase.
So taking water from the Severn could also serve a flood prevention purpose. Though this is unlikely to be admitted, and never linked to wind turbines.
The wider plan I’m suggesting would also explain the quasi-sacred status given to the Wye by writers like George Monbiot, and bodies such as the Wye & Usk Foundation and Afonydd Cymru. For no other river in Wales gets this attention.
Whatever the details, it’s clear that Wales is to supply water to southern England. Much of it from resources in Wales owned by Severn Trent of Coventry.
But Wales won’t get paid a penny.
Ain’t devolution wonderful!
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© Royston Jones 2025
