Supporters of Cymdeithas Trecadwgan issue open letter to council chief executive

To Ian Westley, Chief Executive of Pembrokeshire County Council (PCC)

We wish to raise with you our serious concerns about the sale of Trecadwgan Farm and the behaviour of PCC towards the Community Benefit Society: Cymdeithas Trecadwgan and their efforts to secure the Farm for community benefit. Although we are not members of Cymdeithas Trecadwgan we have closely followed developments in their attempt to purchase this public asset. We have noted with increasing disquiet and disillusion, what we can only characterise as the high-handed manner in which PCC has dealt with this group of local people and the wider community that they represent.

On at least two occasions now, bids to purchase Trecadwgan Farm by Cymdeithas Trecadwgan have been successfully accepted by PCC, and its estate agent John Francis, only to be subsequently undermined and overturned for decidedly questionable reasons. It is truly demoralising to witness a local authority seemingly hell bent on transferring a valuable and, given its outstanding geographical location and rich history, quite unique public asset, into private ownership. Given that local councils in Wales have been liberated from the strictures of Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972, it is both perverse and myopic for PCC to constantly present this as the justification for the decisions they have made to refuse the sale to Cymdeithas Trecadwgan.

Cymdeithas Trecadwgan has set out a clear, ambitious, carefully considered proposal for the retention of Trecadwgan Farm as a self-sustaining community and business enterprise encompassing environmental, educational, cultural, social and economic benefits. They have presented a vision for a long term development that is principally intended to benefit the community in which it is based but also has far reaching implications for much wider contemporary issues such as land ownership and use, food production, farming methods, and the sustainability and welfare of rural communities. All this is underpinned by a professionally developed, formal business plan (required and approved by a commercial bank as part of a mortgage offer for the purchase of Trecadwgan).

Here we have a proposal that is clearly intended to provide long term benefits for its immediate rural community and beyond. We fail to understand why any local authority with a vision for the future would choose not to get behind such an enterprise. PCC would also receive a substantial sum of money from the sale. Yet, it clearly prefers to sell to a private buyer for the professed and vacuous reason that it will achieve a better price ‘for the people of Pembrokeshire’. For the sake of a few thousand pounds a unique community asset and opportunity will be lost to the public good forever. This is blinkered short termism of the most foolish kind.

Furthermore, we would like PCC to tell us what intentions their prospective private purchasers may have in mind for Trecadwgan’s future? Will we have yet another second / holiday home standing empty for much of the year? Or yet another holiday let? Or yet another private development to be sold off for profit? And what would happen to future rights of public access? We all know that public paths can be diverted or even closed. Would there be any provision of resource for community use? Would there be opportunities for local employment, training and apprenticeships, business start-ups, educational visits, local crafts, cultural events, locally produced food etc? Has PCC done its due diligence in relation to any of this? Given PCC’s lack of transparency we doubt that we will get an answer.

How has PCC concluded that the benefits of a private sale outweigh the enormous potential of a sale to a local community group? – which in a real sense already owns the Farm, so would be paying for it twice. What vision does PCC have for Trecadwgan Farm other than figures on a cash register? In addition to ‘bread and butter’ management we look to people we elect as our representatives and servants to provide leadership and example. We expect from them policies and practices that uplift us, give us hope and inspire us. Cymdeithas Trecadwgan certainly provides these qualities - a stark contrast to the inept, contemptuous and contemptible machinations of PCC, which, apparently, can see no further than a short-term bank balance and the economic ideologies that drive its policies.

There are parts of the UK lucky enough to have local authorities with the vision and good sense to recognise the long-term benefits of retaining public assets such as county farms (see the recent BBC Country File programme featuring Dorset County Council, for example). It is regrettable that we, the people of Pembrokeshire, are not so blessed. Instead we are expected to accept the decisions of a council that obviously can recognise the price of an asset but sadly is incapable of recognising anything of its value.

Let’s hope that the conclusion of this sorry saga, at the auction on 4th March, will end in victory for Cymdeithas Trecadwgan.

Yours sincerely,

Keith Denman

Sandra Young

Amanda Stone

Paul Treacy

Pauline Treacy

Mollie Roach

Luci Chapman

Francis Fry

Lena Dixon

John Price

Fran Barker

Joshua Phillips

Joseph Griffin

Gerald Miles

Ifor Thomas

Gill Thomas

Bruce Payne

Jan Payne

Lesley Robertson-Steel

Judy Schunemann

Sylvia Dixon

Jimmy Young

Alan Wheatley

Buffy Wheatley

Jack Wheatley

Louise Wheatley

Wendy Wright

John Wells

Jane Wells

Imogen Davies

Fiona Hill

Delith Williams

Arnold Williams

Sarah Burns

Ellie Sherwin

Chris Sherwin

Robin Tyler

Pat Rees

Dave Perry