A leading Welsh Government civil servant has said calling off plans of a partnership with Green Man has not been ruled out despite buying a £4.25m farm for the festival in Powys. Andrew Slade, director of economy and the treasury, was speaking to the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee on Thursday after Green Man submitted its business plan for Gilestone Farm near Talybont-on-Usk.
The Welsh Government now plans to commit to a "full due diligence and assessment" process to decide whether to proceed with the venture or not, despite already having spent so much money on it. The government has also not ruled out selling the farm.
If the plans do go ahead, then the Green Man Festival will continue to be held at Glan Usk. Mr Slade said purchase of the separate farm would offer a site which would allow the Green Man brand to diversify its operations as a "jewel in Wales' crown'. Both the festival and the Welsh Government have been vague about what the site would be used for but festival boss Fiona Stewart has said she would live there.
READ MORE: Further questions about the £4.25m the Welsh Government spent on a farm for Green Man
The Welsh Government had been concerned that Green Man would be bought after numerous mooted bids from international firms, Mr Slade said. He said there were worries it would mean the festival would be moved away from Wales when they decided to buy the farm in March for a million pounds more than it was valued at in February 2020. But the government said it paid £100k less than the farm's market value in March.
Sceptics have been critical of the Welsh Government for paying so much for the site, and for purchasing it without seeing a business plan or “knowing the full facts”. Mr Slade said it would be incorrect to say the government hadn’t established a strong idea of what the plans were, but also repeated to the committee that the government could sell the farm at market value and recoup “most if not all” of the money spent.
Plaid Cymru MS Rhys ab Owen asked Mr Slade: “Is it usual practice to spend more than four million pounds before receiving a detailed business plan?” Mr Slade responded: “You need to have an outlined case before you proceed and that is what we have got, but it is perfectly possible for government to engage in a purchase where we think that the purchase will deliver on policy objectives.
“We have bought a property and we’ve followed appropriate processes to buy it, and now we’re holding it and are in discussions on how to move forward. We will now do an extensive process of due diligence and at the end of it we will decide whether we want to proceed or not.”
Mr Slade later said: “Nothing we do is without risk, but there was a major risk we would let a suitable property for the purposes of delivering on our policy directives go. We took the opportunity to step into the market and preserve the potential for Green Man to develop its operations, subject to a full business plan.
“It’s an interesting test isn’t it that if we hadn’t done this we’d get people coming to us saying: ‘What are you doing letting that go?’. There is always a balance to be had.”
Conservative MS Natasha Asghar asked Mr Slade: “Will it now be common practice for the Welsh Government to spend taxpayers’ money to support ventures without being in receipt of the full facts?”
Mr Slade said: “I don’t accept the premise of the question. We received an outline business case from Green Man off the back of the pandemic including what they were looking for to help secure the brand in Wales.
“It was on that basis that we entered into a property transaction. We didn’t just wake up one morning and decide we wanted to buy a farm.”
Mr Owen said he’d “heard a lot of buzzwords” but still didn’t know what the Welsh Government or Green Man had planned for Gilestone Farm. “What’s the actual purpose of buying it?” he asked.
Mr Slade replied: “This is about the wider business which will include sustainable development work, farming activities, and a range of other things that will allow them to keep operating in Wales.”
Green Man has an option to exercise a purchase of the land from the Welsh Government further down the line, Mr Slade said, but the business was not in a financial position to buy it directly from the current owner - who remains on the working farm and is currently renting it from the government until the end of October 2022.
Mr Slade also told the committee that the government has been discussing a purchase of land in Wales for Green Man since 2019. “We had no joy over the last few years and then we were told by Green Man of the possibility of Gilestone Farm earlier in the year,” he explained. “When it came up it ticked many if not all of the boxes in the outline business plan and that is why we moved at a pace with Green Man and the vendor.”
Conservative MS and Chair of the committee Mark Isherwood asked Mr Slade if the Welsh Government had considered the impact of the plans on protected wildlife at Gilestone Farm and in the surrounding area. He said the committee had received a number of questions from locals on the matter, especially bats and curlews in the area which is a special area of conservation.
Mr Slade said: “It’s entirely understandable people will have an interest and concern with what is going on. I think one of the things we will learn from the process is that we might handle communication and engagement with parties and partners differently in light of the interest which has been shown here.
“We are now in a detailed interrogation stage to better understand how the local community feels, how the local authority feels, and how the planning authority is likely to feel. If at the end of that process we decide this isn’t a runner and doesn’t meet the tests then we won’t proceed.
“I’m very content that what we have done is consistent with our policy objectives as a government whether that be environment, rural economy, wellbeing of future generations and climate change. The Green Man brand is very sustainable and the work that Green Man wants to do underpins those points.”
In May, Green Man director Fiona Stewart - who will live on the farm - appeared before the Commons' Welsh Affairs Committee and was asked about the farm. It was put to her by Conservative MP Robin MIllar that "Welsh Government have secured the site for the festival".
To that she replied: "No, the Green Man is not moving there. Like I said, we cover other things apart from festival organisation. I cannot really talk about it, to be honest with you, so if we could move on from that subject. What I can say is that the Green Man is not going to be moving there. As a brand, the Green Man is a multitude of things. It is training. It is food and beverages. It is events. It is climate change. It is science. I think the idea, if it goes forward, is that we would be developing those things in that new space."
Andrew RT Mr Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, said: "This story has been shrouded in darkness, and the economy minister has stonewalled many of my written questions on the issue. Labour ministers didn't expect a business plan from Green Man prior to purchase, they won't say whether it was Welsh Government who approached Green Man, and no Welsh Minister has ever even visited the site in an official capacity.
"Another question that needs to be asked is why Welsh Government paid £4.25million for a farm that was valued at £3.25million less than two years earlier. More clarity is required from Labour ministers as to where this magic million pounds has come from."
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