Mark Drakeford has defended the Welsh Government's decision to spend £4.25m on a piece of land for the Green Man festival. It emerged last week that the Welsh Government has bought Gilestone Farm in Powys for £4.25m despite its intended tenant not having provided a business plan.
Economy minister Vaughan Gething has said that the purchase was intended to ensure Green Man has a "permanent home" in Wales, but the festival organisers said they had no plans to move from their current home at the Glanusk Estate near Crickhowell. The festival is understood to want to use the farm for sustainable farming and local food production but no business plan has yet been submitted to the Welsh Government by the festival's organisers and that will not come until next month.
The matter was raised in the Senedd on Tuesday, May 24, by Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies. He asked First Minister Mark Drakeford: "The economy Minister said that the Welsh Government had spent £4.25 million purchasing a farm in mid Wales, in his words, to secure a permanent home in Wales for the Green Man Festival. The next day, the festival said that there are no plans to move the Green Man Festival from the Glan Usk estate to Gilestone Farm. These two statements are polar opposite. Which is correct, First Minister?"
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Mr Drakeford said there were no plans to move the festival but "those who are responsible for the festival believe that they can do to contribute to the economy of that part of Wales, building on the success of their business".
"To do that they need more space in which to be able to develop those further possibilities. That's what lies behind the arrangements."
Mr Davies said that other businesses who want Welsh Government funding have to provide business plans including robust financial projections but no plan has been submitted. He said there was "no other competitive tendering process, there was no other going to the market to offer other facilities to other operators in mid Wales—£4.25 million was made available to the Green Man Festival, in effect to secure them a permanent home".
"So, how is it that the Green Man Festival can secure £4.25 million-worth of Government support with no business plan, when any other business here in Wales would have to submit that very necessary piece of information to acquire even a fraction of that money to support their business plans?" he asked.
The First Minister said that the festival has not been given £4m but the Welsh Government has an asset "worth more than that sum of money". He said it would, for the short term, be leased back to the original owner in order that they can complete the bookings that they have in their tourism hospitality business and to make sure that the crops that have been planted at that farm are harvested this year.
"From the very beginning, we knew that the businesses plan from those who are responsible for the festival would be delivered to the Welsh Government in June of this year, and that is what we still expect. We are working with a trusted partner. We are working with a company that the Welsh Government has known and worked alongside over an extended period of time, as it has grown to be the fifth most successful festival of its kind anywhere in the United Kingdom. We hold the land against the business plan and we will continue to scrutinise the business plan to see whether the objectives that the company have discussed with us can be delivered through it. In the meantime, the public has an asset, which it is able to dispose of, either in the way that we hope, by supporting that business to do more, or, if we aren't able to do it in that way, that asset remains and can be realised in other ways."
"On the basis of a business plan, which we had agreed from the outset will be submitted in June of this year, we will scrutinise the business plan and decide whether or not that site can be made available to that business for its future expansion plans. If it does, then there will be a legal basis on which that site can be used by the company, and the alternative bases were what my colleague was setting out for you last week. Neither of those has been agreed, because there is, as he said, a process still to be completed."
The farm has previously been at the centre of a legal dispute involving Brecon Beacons National Park Authority. Then owners, the Thomas family, built a caravan park at the site in Talybont-on-Usk. When their planning dispute got to the high court in 2009, the court was told the plans were "from start to finish a fabrication - a tissue of lies by the barrister representing the Usk Valley Conservation Group.
The Brecon Beacons National Park Authority agreed planning permission for 50 caravans and 50 tents but the Usk Valley Conservation Group, made up of members of the local community, asked the High Court to review the decision to grant the application and the subsequent failure of the authority to close the caravan park.
In 2010, a judge quashed the planning permission they had been granted - blaming "many errors" of the national park authority - and the Thomas say they lost everything. The subsequent legal battle left the family living in a static caravan. The family now run The Moody Cow farm shop near Aberaeron. You can read their story here.
