A Chance To Be Decisive

This offering starts out as a quickie, and I hope it stays that way. But as you know, these things have a way of growing.

PORTHMADOG

The origin for this piece was an article in last week’s Cambrian News. After a front-page intro the story was set out inside. And here it is.

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The same story appeared a couple of days earlier in NorthWalesLive and, presumably, the Daily Post.

This link to Google maps shows the land in question on the Penamser Industrial Estate in Porthmadog. Overlooked by Travis Perkins and Travelodge.

Local politicians claim that the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ has some kind of “exclusivity agreement” with a company that has resulted in this land gathering weeds while local businesses want to set up or expand on that land.

The company in question is Morbaine Ltd, of Widnes, in Cheshire.

Here’s a contribution to the dispute from local Plaid councillor Nia Jeffreys.

“It makes no sense at all that public money is being spent on this site whilst the Welsh Government is standing in the way of job creation in Porthmadog. They must seriously reconsider their decision and their priorities for the sake of our local economy.”

For God’s sake, woman, don’t use words like “economy” when dealing with the ‘Welsh Government’! Language like that could have Drakeford falling off his bike.

WHAT CAN COMPANIES HOUSE TELL US?

The CH entry for Morbaine Ltd seems to confirm what the website tells us about it being a family-owned firm. And that the family is named Finlan, though there are other directors.

When we turn to the Charges tab we see loans and other arrangements related to property and land in Wales, Scotland, and England. With 48 of them outstanding. There were a number of mentions for Caernarfon Road, Bangor.

This would appear to be the area of retail units on the edge of the city which, coming from Caernarfon, start with the Tesco Extra store on the roundabout. This must have made Morbaine a few quid.

The financials certainly seem to have perked up last year, with accounts to 30 June 2022 showing a profit of £727,251 against a loss of £1,168,055 the previous year.

I mentioned the new directors, and this may link with “significant control” passing in March from John Finlan who, if he’s still alive, is 98, to Morbaine Properties Ltd.

So what’s the story with Morbaine Properties? Well, there are 13 outstanding charges. With the latest accounts showing a gross profit of £5.24m on a turnover of just £6.87m. Which is quite impressive.

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The entry for significant control shows John William Finlan who, at 31 years old, I take to be the grandson of the old man I just mentioned. Yet this entry might be misleading.

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And I say that because when we turn to a document filed on June 22 showing the distribution of shares, we see that John William Finlan is a minority shareholder. And that’s been the case for some years.

Finlan owns just 60 out of a total of 200 shares. With 100 being held by “Helen Woods Equiom (Isle of Man) Ltd”, and another 30 by “Equiom (Isle of Man) Ltd Helen Woods”. (To make sense of the entry note that some listings are for 0 shares.)

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Here’s Helen Woods’ Linkedin profile. You’ll see that she’s, “Tax Director at Hotchkiss Associates Limited Isle of Man”.

So through holding most of the shares, Helen Woods / Equiom of the Isle of Man, now owns the company that has some kind of deal with the ‘Welsh Government’.

Or so it might appear at first sight.

WHO OWNS WHO?

As you’d expect, Equiom is quite a big outfit. I get the impression it provides legal and other services for even bigger fish. One of which seems to have swallowed it.

For an online search revealed that Equiom was taken over last year by Alcentra. Here’s the Alcentra website. With offices in London, New York, Boston, Tokyo and Hong Kong Alcentra has “Total Assets Under Management” of $34bn.

But as the website tells us, Alcentra itself is now owned by somebody else:

Alcentra is a wholly owned subsidiary of Franklin Resources, Inc. (Franklin Templeton) which is one of the world’s largest independent investment managers with $1.4 trillion in total assets under management

And this was another takeover achieved last year.

From what I can see, Franklin is still independent and owned by the Johnson brothers of Silicon Valley. And Franklin Resources are certainly big fish, listed at number 20 in this, “World’s Top Asset Management Firms”. A list headed of course by BlackRock and Vanguard.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE LAND?

Tracking something on the Land Registry website can be straightforward if you have an address or a title number. But in this case it’s just land in the vicinity of Penamser Road.

Still, I tried my luck. And the site is easy enough to locate, it’s in the centre of this OS Land Registry map.

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This helped me track down, “Land lying on the North side of Penamser Road, Porthmadog (Freehold)”. Title number WA612872. And here is the 30-page title document, but unfortunately there was no plan available.

We see that the owners of the land are, “The National Assembly for Wales”.

A search of the title document turned up two mentions of “Morbaine”.

The first, on page 24, refers to an “option to purchase the land edged mauve”. But without a plan we can’t locate this land. This entry is dated November 26, 1991. It was an agreement between Morbaine and the Welsh Development Agency (WDA).

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The second entry is on the penultimate page and it reads:

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That title number, CYM402906 refers to land now occupied by Travelodge. It was sold by Morbaine Ltd to Sunville Properties Ltd. Here’s the title document, scroll down for the plan.

From which I conclude that the original title WA612872 covered the land sold off for the Travelodge plus the land now being discussed.

Which means that a week or so before selling it on Morbaine bought the land from “The Welsh Ministers”. And without doing anything, sold the land to Sunville at a profit.

Nice work if you can get get it.

AND FINALLY . . .

The problem with the land at Penamser Road is that Morbaine has an option to buy. But claims it can’t do so until the ‘Welsh Government’ carries out “remedial works“.

Which will of course be paid for from the public purse.

“The current position is that we are still waiting for the Welsh Government to deal with various issues on the site as part of the land transfer . . . Following these works we hope to then be able to progress expressions of interest received in the site from retail operators. The site has an extant retail consent.

“From our position it has been extremely frustrating that addressing these remedial works has taken so long.”

It has always been the case that too much of the money made in Wales leaves Wales. The Travelodge money-for-old-rope deal suggests Morbaine is just another company making money out of Wales while contributing nothing.

Devolution has made things worse, with successive administrations wanting to single-handedly save the planet, fight trans genocide, confront the fascist hordes . . . which in practice means throwing money at global corporations, unhinged narcissists, and grant-grab grifters.

I think Morbaine – or whoever now owns the company – should be told that 32 years is long enough to sit on an option to buy. And so the ‘Welsh Government’ is cancelling that arrangement and asserting full control over the land at Penamser Road.

Because, if, as the councillors say, there is “local interest to develop the land and create jobs“, then local businesses should take priority over Morbaine’s clients, who will almost certainly come from over the border.

The ‘Welsh Government’ can be decisive enough when it comes to making mistakes; here’s a chance to get something right for a change, and help Welsh people.

Remember us?

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© Royston Jones 2023

Shorts & Updates 22.02.2018

BRYNCYNON COMMUNITY REVIVAL STRATEGY LTD

I added an update to the previous post about Empower after learning more about this group, and perhaps what struck me most was the fact that despite the latest Accounts telling us (top of page 4) that “Trustees are elected from Bryncynon and its surrounding areas”, only one of the trustees lives anywhere near Bryncynon.

So I took it upon myself to make enquiries into these non-local trustees, assuming that if they’ve been recruited without knowing the area then they must bring some special talent to the venture. The four, all appointed 31.03.2017, are: Elizabeth Claire Bryan of Brackla, Bridgend; Paul Christopher Maliphant of Whitchurch, Cardiff; David Joseph Haines of Llandaff, Cardiff; and Robert Andrew Dickens of Mitchel Troy, Monmouth.

Ladies first. Elizabeth Claire Bryan is also a Designated Member (partner) in Coherent Light Consulting LLP. The other Designated Member is Michael Haydn Bryan, of Tonteg, Pontypridd, who I assume is her father. Bryan père is involved in a number of other bodies – Arts Factory Ltd of Ferndale, Toogoodtowaste Ltd of Porth, Citizens Advice Rhondda Cynon Taff Ltd, and Ffotogallery Wales Ltd.

Given that these are all reliant on public funding it would be reasonable to assume that Bryan is a Labour Party member or supporter. But on the Companies House website (and elsewhere) he consistently gives his nationality as ‘Welsh’.

As Labour Party members tend to be Welsh only for the duration of a rugby international this might indicate that Bryan is not a bruvver. Someone out there must know.

Either way, Claire Bryan is a consultant.

Next up we have Paul Christopher Maliphant, whose Linkedin profile would suggest that he’s a geologist . . . ideal then for a community venture like Bryncynon Community Revival Strategy Ltd. But he is also a mentor, approved and recommended by the ‘Welsh’ Government.

Above his photo you’ll see a tab for ‘Mentor profiles’. I urge you to click on it and go through some of the bios. God Almighty! it’s frightening, with a worrying number of them having moved here in their twilight years or else they’re not living in Wales at all.

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These mentors are listed alphabetically – by Christian name! Which means they run from Adrian T. Barsby to Yasmin Crawford. So if you’re looking for ‘Wassisname Doyle’ you’d better know that it’s Lindsay Hugh Doyle.

Moving on, the next trustee is David Joseph Haines. Now Dai has an interesting business background . . . in shipping, which must be useful along the bustling quays and wharfs of Cwm Cynon.

The only company he’s involved with that hasn’t sunk or been scuppered is Bryncynon Community Revival Strategy Ltd itself. Quite what he brings to the party is a mystery to me.

The final non-local is Robert Andrew Dickens whose business interests seem to flit between addresses in Monmouth and Aberthaw. I guess what puts the bread on his table now is Safety Technology Ltd.

Though there are disasters in his past, too. Not least Mainline Safety Ltd, which sank with all hands – and a few creditors – off Liverpool some years ago. Merseyside being where Dickens calls home, Southport to be exact.

Bringing up the rear we have the only local trustee in John Matthews, Earth-botherer, former policeman and now bus driver who’s been in post for over ten years. I suppose they had to keep him on to have one trustee who could pronounce Bryncynon.

The ‘Welsh’ Government has obviously stepped in and appointed these new trustees (and in so doing might have broken the rules), perhaps because the Abercynon venture has relied heavily on Communities First funding and this has now come to an end.

But what has it all achieved?

We have areas across Wales like Abercynon in desperate need of help, but the only response from Cardiff Bay is, ‘OK, we’ll give you money to buy an old chapel – turn it into a cafe, crèche and community building – then we’ll send you up a few mentors, and if things are really bad we’ll chuck in a motivator, too. And then, when this pot of money runs out, we’ll look for another one. Tidy, mun’.

All this system achieves is the normalisation of deprivation and the creation of a dependency culture. For politicians it’s being seen to be doing something. For civil servants it’s a box-ticking exercise. And for the third sector it’s just milking the system.

Something in it for everybody . . . except those it’s supposedly helping.

ANONYMOUS LETTERS

Regular readers will have heard me mention Wynne Jones of Cardigan. Wynne is a scourge of the third sector and the civil servants with responsibility for the third sector due to his probing questions and his meticulous record-keeping. I bet there are senior civil servants quaking at the mere mention of his name.

So wary have civil servants now become of Wynne that he is receiving letters with neither signature nor name appended, suggesting that some civil servants don’t want to put their name to the answers they’re providing. Why would that be?

And the same thing is happening to me. Here are a couple of samples. The one on the top was received by Wynne last week and the other was sent to me last month.

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And it’s getting even more strange now with Wynne because he is being asked to discuss things on the telephone, suggesting that some of the civil servants he’s dealing with don’t want to put anything in writing, whether signed or not.

What a situation! What does it tell us about the way Wales is run?

If you’re reading this, Carwyn (and if you’re still FM), what do you think about civil servants answering letters anonymously? I’m sure there must be a rule that says there should be a name attached.

Because when we take over, how will we know who to put on trial?

USING THE MEDIA

In case you missed it, there was a curious story in the media earlier this week about a man accused of being a paedophile because he stayed in a Cheshire hotel with his fourteen-year-old daughter while visiting his cancer-stricken mother. Here’s the WalesOnline report which also tells us that the man’s wife – and presumably the girl’s mother – suffers from multiple sclerosis.

The family lives in the relatively remote Carmarthenshire village of Rhydcymerau, which may be found on the B4337 between Llanybydder and Llansawel. I assumed they had recently moved to the village. A suspicion borne out by his Linkedin profile and these entries from 192.com.

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As I say, this story appeared in WalesOnline and its print version Llais y Sais. And though it was claimed as an Exclusive by the Daily Star it also appeared in the Independent, the Sun, the Express, Mirror and a host of other ‘papers and online sites. Nick Ferrari had a rant about it on LBC, it was reported in Australia, and even beyond the Anglosphere. Here’s a Czech report, a Flemish account, and finally, for good measure, it’s covered here in what I think is Chinese.

This coverage, for what was little more than a misunderstanding, is quite incredible. How was it achieved?

If we look at the photograph above we see that the attribution is “Image: Karl Pollard / SWNS.com”. Which would suggest that the image belongs to Pollard and was distributed by South West News Service, an agency dealing in ‘news’ for those who prefer ‘human interest’ stories.

The Twitter feed, with tales of a hairy-chested woman and a foetus flicking a V-sign, tells us that SWNS is to news reporting what The Jeremy Kyle Show is to intellectual discourse, or am I being too harsh? Whether I am or not, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that after the incident at the Travelodge in Macclesfield Pollard went to SWNS with the story and the pictures.

What’s more, he wasn’t slow about it. The WalesOnline report is datelined 10:20 Monday the 19th and says the incident happened “last week”. The StarSun, Express and Mirror reports are dated Sunday the 18th.

Perhaps this explains why it has been suggested to me there may be something ‘contrived’ about the whole thing. I’m not sure about that because it wasn’t Pollard who called the police, it was staff at the hotel. But then again, he must have realised that a 46-year-old man sharing a bedroom with a 14-year-old girl is guaranteed to attract suspicion.

But it’s how Pollard responded to a misunderstanding that was soon sorted out that causes me disquiet.

Let’s look at the three most important females in Karl Pollard’s life. His mother is gravely ill with cancer, his wife is suffering from multiple sclerosis, and his 14-year-old daughter was, in Pollard’s own words, “distraught” after being questioned by police, so all three would surely have craved peace and quiet.

But no, Pollard goes chasing global exposure for a simple misunderstanding made by sincere people acting out of the best possible motives.

I can’t help thinking that the media got this story arse-backwards.

MASSAGE

As you might imagine, I get a lot of strange messages, from all sorts of people and by a number of different routes. This week has been no different. Here’s one I feel able to share with you.

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Let me start by saying that I know nothing of ‘massage’ in the Tonypandy area (or anywhere else, come to that), nor have I been Googling for such services. So it was easy to dismiss this message as some kind of joke. But then I was drawn to the logo, which made me think the source at least might be kosher.

More than that, a pink butterfly with the body made up of a woman in a tight-fitting dress suggested to me that if it exists then the Women’s Business Club is for women, rather than the wimmin I have written about of late. So I Googled Women’s Business Club and sure enough, it is genuine.

This may have started as someone’s idea of a joke but I was very impressed with what I read on the website, consequently – and even though the heels are killing me – I have now joined and I’m looking forward immensely to the next Wonderbra Session.

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