Now that a new council has been elected to serve the people of Conwy, I look forward very much to seeing who will be appointed as cabinet member with responsibility for handling the issue of Colwyn Bay pier.
I also look forward to meeting him/her as soon as possible.
Posted in Colwyn Bay pier, Council elections
There has been yet a further development in the strange, eventful history of Colwyn Bay pier.
Today, in Mold County Court, His Honour Judge Milwyn Jarman QC adjourned the hearing of Mr Steve Hunt’s claim for a vesting order to a date to be fixed later this year.
The consequence is that the council’s title to the pier will remain unclear until the court has made its final order. It should be noted that judge apparently criticised the council for failing to file its skeleton argument until late on Friday afternoon.
This really is a dreadful mess, and it must be wondered why the council thought it a good idea to acquire the pier when it knew that there was a dispute over its ownership.
One must equally wonder why, in the circumstances, the Welsh Assembly Government thought it sensible to pay a large sum of money, believed to be around £36,000, for the pier.
Given the continued litigation, I’ll leave it at that. I’m far from happy, and I shall certainly be discussing the issue with the new council leader as soon as possible after the local elections.
Posted in Colwyn Bay pier
Tagged Conwy County Borough Council, Steve Hunt, Welsh Assembly Government
This blog appears to have attracted the attention of Mr Llŷr Huws Gruffydd, who is a Plaid Cymru regional Assembly member for North Wales.
Quoted in the North Wales Pioneer, Mr Gruffydd suggests that my criticisms of Conwy Council’s handling of the Colwyn Bay pier issue are “potentially harmful to the council’s efforts to acquire further funds for the pier”.
He says:
“Publicly doubting the council’s endeavours will only hinder the efforts to save the pier. He really should know better.”
Mr Gruffydd clearly does not get it.
Contrary to his views, the essential problem is that nowhere near enough public scrutiny of the council’s proposals for the pier has ever taken place. If it had, the current sad state of affairs might have been averted. We need more public discussion of this important issue, not less.
It is also worth pointing out that the group running the council at the relevant time was a coalition of parties led by Plaid Cymru.
So perhaps Mr Gruffydd ought to be having a quiet word with the likes of Dilwyn Roberts, the former Plaid council leader, and Phil Edwards, former leader of the Plaid Cymru group, rather than berating those who are trying to shine a little light on the routinely opaque modus operandi that seems to have prevailed in Conwy when his party was in charge.
He really should know better.
Posted in Colwyn Bay pier
Tagged Colwyn Bay, Conwy County Borough Council, Phil Edwards, Plaid Cymru
An early morning, insomnia-induced, trawl through the published minutes of Conwy County Borough Council relating to Colwyn Bay’s Victoria Pier has provided interesting reading.
I have no doubt, however, that the exercise would have proven considerably more illuminating had the material not been so lavishly “restricted” (i.e. censored) by the council pursuant to paragraph 14 of Part 4 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972.
The 1972 Act provides, in essence, that the public and press may be excluded from council meetings whenever it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that “exempt information” will be disclosed. Paragraph 14 provides that among the categories of information that may be “exempt” is:
information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).
Given that Conwy has invoked paragraph 14 in connection with most of its deliberations relating to the pier, we can only guess what transpired during many of the ten full council, cabinet and committee meetings at which the issue was discussed.
However, the minutes of the special meeting of the full council held on 8 June, 2011, record the following (edited, with my italics):
“The Leader presented a report in relation to the current position of Colwyn Bay Pier and the options available to the Council…
“Following a request at Cabinet on 24 May 2011, additional information in relation to costings and risk assessments were presented to Council.
“Members discussed the options available in great detail and agreed to endorse Option 3 (seek to acquire freehold).
“Concern was raised with regard to the Council’s Capital Programme and the need to provide opportunities for other areas of the County Borough, other than the Baylife+ Regeneration Area. It was therefore agreed that the restoration of the Pier should only be funded through external grants.
“RESOLVED-
“(a) That Option 3 (seek to acquire freehold) of the report be approved…
“(e) That the Council expects the renovation of Colwyn Bay Pier to be funded from external grants and does not therefore anticipate any call on the Council’s capital programme for that purpose.”
In retrospect, given the events of this week, the expectation recorded in sub-paragraph (e) would appear to have been somewhat over-optimistic, not to say cavalier. It calls further into question the wisdom of completing the purchase of the freehold without confirmation of grant funding.
On 15 November, 2011, the council cabinet met to consider a report on the progress being made in preparing detailed proposals and funding applications for the restoration and development of the pier. The minutes record (again edited, with my italics):
“Members considered the risks to the Council once the Pier had been acquired and the contingency plans if the proposals failed.
“The Business Plan and Profit and Loss Projections were discussed in detail and it was felt by some Members that the Business Plan was over ambitious and the following concerns were highlighted:
“Income in relation to the footfall particularly in relation to the catering and bar functions
“Expenditure in relation to Staffing Costs…
“There was also concern in relation to the reputational risk to the Council, and in response the Chief Executive provided Members with details of the key trigger points and the phased programme of action options that could be progressed based on the degree of funding success. The Chief Executive confirmed that final approval [of the Business Plan] would be dependent on all funding packages being in place.
“Members acknowledged that the Business Plan was the basis for the proposals and that more detailed plans would be required if HLF supported the initial application.”
Indeed, it would appear that the proposals reflected in the business plan were considered so over-ambitious that two senior councillors, Philip Evans and Graham Rees, voted against the resolution approved by the cabinet that they “form the basis of partnership grant applications, led by Conwy County Borough Council to the Heritage Lottery Fund, Convergence and others so as to realise these proposals”. It must also be wondered why it was apparently considered unnecessary to work up more detailed plans before submitting the bid to the HLF.
I have previously expressed my concern that the council’s discussions on such an important issue were conducted in private, without scrutiny by public or press. The above extracts from the restricted minutes, I feel, justify that concern.
Certainly, given that the pier has now been acquired, the issue of commercial sensitivity would appear no longer relevant, and it would be appropriate for the council to publish in full the minutes of the meeting of 8 June, 2011, and the background documents considered. People have a right to know why the council made the decision it did, and what led it to “expect the renovation of Colwyn Bay Pier to be funded from external grants” and not to “anticipate any call on the Council’s capital programme for that purpose”.
Before the HLF funding bid is resubmitted, it will be highly desirable to obtain a strong degree of input from the public. The publication of the minutes and the background documents will be invaluable for such purpose and to inform the debate that I believe is essential. I have no doubt that it will also prove helpful to Shore Thing and the council itself.
Finally, a new council will be elected on 3 May. Given the experience over the pier, electors will very probably consider that they have a right to a significantly improved level of transparency. I do hope that the new councillors will ensure that that is what is provided.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been heavily involved in the tortuous recent history of Colwyn Bay’s Victoria Pier. If you’re not up to speed on the issue, I suggest that you use the search facility in the top corner.
My blog postings have become increasingly infrequent over the past couple of years, largely because my workload is now such that what passes for my spare time is chiefly occupied in sleep; my life has become what my grandmother used to call “bed and work”. However, since there have been significant and worrying developments in the pier saga over the last couple of weeks, I felt it appropriate to take advantage of the Easter break to compose this post.
The first piece of news broke last week. Readers will recall that the trustees in the bankruptcy of Mr Steve Hunt, the former owner of the pier, disclaimed their trust last August. As a consequence, the pier (to short-circuit the legal intricacies of the process considerably) fell into the ownership of the Crown Estate. Last week, Conwy County Council announced that it had purchased the pier from the Welsh Assembly Government, which it had itself just acquired it from the Estate. The purchase price is understood to be around £36,000.
Hard on the heels of that announcement came the news, three days ago, that the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) had turned down an application by Conwy for a grant of £4.9 million toward the cost of restoration of the pier. In a press release, the head of HLF Wales said:
“This month’s HLF Board meeting was very over-subscribed. The quality of bids was exceptionally high and, regretfully, we just didn’t have enough money to support all the applications we looked at on the day. We will be meeting with representatives from the Council shortly to discuss the best way forward for their project.”
The consequence of these two developments is that Conwy now owns a listed building in the most appalling state of disrepair that is disfiguring the seafront of Colwyn Bay. It hasn’t a penny to repair it, but does have an obligation, given the pier’s listed status, to restore it. The cost of restoration is now probably north of £10 million. To demolish it would probably cost around £1 million, but to do that the council would require listed building consent, which would take time, during which the pier would have to be repaired.
The liability for all this cost falls on the council taxpayers of Conwy county, who are already reeling after another substantial tax increase this year. It is a dreadful state of affairs that could have been entirely avoided if the issue had been properly handled by the council.
Readers will probably know that the council has been in dispute for some years with Mr Steve Hunt, who contends that he was wrongly bankrupted for non-payment of business rates. That issue is, essentially, a legal matter between Mr Hunt and the council.
Mr Hunt is not the most user-friendly person in the world (as even he would probably acknowledge) and the manner in which he has tended to express himself has sometimes been unfortunate. It has probably cost him some friends in the council, if he ever had any. He considers, however, that he has justifiable cause to feel aggrieved by the council’s conduct. That may well be the case, but, since it is the subject of litigation, it would not be proper for me to comment further.
I do, however, now feel it proper to acquaint readers with my concerns over the council’s handling of this issue.
My overriding objective in connection with the pier has been to try to judge the mood of the people of Colwyn Bay and to ensure that it is properly represented. To that end, I held two public meetings in 2010, at which the issue of the pier was fully discussed, and formed the firm opinion that there was a considerable desire within the town to see the pier restored if at all possible. This was not by any means a universal view; the well-respected Colwyn Bay Civic Society, for example, considered that the pier had had its day and should be demolished. That remains the Society’s position.
Nevertheless, given that the majority of those who attended the meeting, and who wrote separately to me, clearly wanted to see the pier restored, I pressed for the council to engage with Mr Hunt and his trustee in bankruptcy. I took the view that it was neither proper nor realistic for Conwy to try to behave as if Mr Hunt didn’t exist.
It was clear to me, however, that Conwy didn’t want to speak to Mr Hunt. At a personal level, this was perhaps understandable, given the less than complimentary terms in which Mr Hunt had spoken and written about council members and officials. However, it was equally clear that there would be no progress unless and until some constructive discussions took place. For that to happen, people would have to put personal issues aside.
It was not until April of the following year that I managed to set up a meeting, which took place at my office and was attended by a senior councillor, senior council officers and Mr Hunt himself. I privately considered it a remarkable achievement to get them all to sit in the same room.
The question of the HLF bid was discussed. It was clear that Mr Hunt, as a private individual, would not qualify for funding. The council’s preference was for a not-for-profit company, Shore Thing, to lead the funding bid, supported by the council itself. To do so, the council would need to have legal title to the pier, although Shore Thing would probably need a lease.
I expressed concern about the wisdom of the council’s acquiring the pier, given its condition, without an assurance that the HLF would make funding available. The cost of restoration would be enormous and it would be folly to take on the liability otherwise.
As a suggestion to progress the issue, I proposed:
That, it seemed to me, was a way of progressing the matter without exposing Conwy to financial liability. The terms of the lease and underlease would, of course, have to be negotiated and would have to be watertight, but the council had excellent in-house legal advice available to it.
Everyone present at the meeting seemed to think that the proposal was sensible, including the councillor. It was understood that there would be further discussions between the parties and that the council should take advice from the District Valuer as to the proper level of rent. Those were commercial considerations, not issues for politicians, and should be dealt with separately.
I was reasonably cheered by the outcome of the meeting and briefly blogged about it. At last, it seemed, people were parking their personal differences and concentrating on the principal issue.
A few weeks later, I attended another meeting at Conwy’s offices in Llandudno Junction. Mr Hunt was again present, but the councillor who attended the meeting at my office had been replaced by a cabinet member. I was hugely disappointed by both the lack of progress since the previous meeting and the attitude of the cabinet member, which was, frankly, negative in the extreme. He made it clear that he would not deal with Mr Hunt and that he took exception to “what he’s said about me”. The council, he said, would not enter into an agreement for a lease, but would seek to acquire the pier directly. I understood that Mr Hunt had in fact proposed three options for leases for the council to consider, but the councillor was apparently prepared to entertain none of them.
I told the councillor that I was very disappointed and that I felt that the course he was proposing to follow was dangerous and would put council taxpayers’ money at risk. An altercation developed between Mr Hunt and the councillor; the councillor then left the meeting before it had formally concluded. I was dismayed by his apparent inability to separate personal and business considerations.
The council’s acquisition of the pier and its failure to secure HLF funding are, for the reasons set out above, a very serious matter. The council has handled the issue poorly and now needs to concentrate all its efforts on working up a stronger bid for HLF funding. The line it has put out to the press (“It is not a case of now or never”) seems, frankly, complacent and lacks the sense of urgency one might expect.
Yes, this is a very serious matter; not only for the people of Colwyn Bay, but also for the people of the entire county of Conwy, who now find themselves the involuntary owners of an enormous and depreciating negative asset without the means to restore it.
I have already contacted the council’s chief executive and propose to meet him soon to discuss the way forward. I am anxious to do all I can to help rescue the HLF bid. And there are a lot of other local people who, I am sure, would be equally pleased to help. The council should be speaking to them, too.
Not only do we need the HLF money, we need another £5 million or so on top, in order to restore the pier. We need to consider where that is to come from. We also need to talk about the attractions that will be located on the pier and whether they will produce a sufficient income stream to maintain it. Everyone with a sensible proposal for a sustainable future for the pier should be invited to come forward and have his or her say.
And, most importantly, we need to ensure that all this is done in public. No more closed meetings with press and public excluded, which have been the council’s modus operandi hitherto. This is one of the biggest issues in Conwy and it is essential that we all know what’s going on.
With a bit of maturity and sense of purpose, something good, even wonderful, may yet come out of this miserable episode. But the ball is now firmly in Conwy’s court. Let’s hope that their past performance is not an indication of things to come.
The second Victoria Pier meeting was again extremely well attended. I’d estimate that at least a couple of hundred people turned up at Colwyn Bay’s St Paul’s church, which was a much more spacious venue than the Town Hall.
Candidates for membership of the steering committee came forward and all spoke with passion, not only about the pier, but about the town itself. All of them clearly loved Colwyn Bay and all were anxious to see it regenerated.
The meeting unanimously approved the election of the members of the committee. Now we can make progress. I will meet the committee after the general election to discuss the way forward.
I have enormous admiration for the people of Colwyn Bay. They are proud of their town and its history and want to see it improve. Let us hope that the issue of the pier can become the catalyst for something even bigger.
Press release dated 25 January, 2010:
Following last Friday’s meeting at Colwyn Bay Town Hall to discuss the future of the Victoria Pier, Clwyd West MP, David Jones, has arranged a meeting with Conwy Chief Executive, Byron Davies, on February 16, to discuss options for the way forward.
David Jones said:
“The large attendance at last Friday’s meeting showed the strong desire in Colwyn Bay to see the Victoria Pier restored. On a show of hands at the meeting, over 90% indicated that, not only did they support the pier’s restoration, but that they were willing to contribute to it financially.
“The principal stumbling block is the question of the pier’s ownership. It seems that the council remains in litigation with Mr Steve Hunt and that the freehold of the pier is still technically in the ownership of administrators.
“The council and Mr Hunt hold the key to progress. I feel very strongly that they should now negotiate actively with a view to finding an end to the dispute. Similarly, the administrators should be prepared to negotiate a settlement of their own claim. When that has been concluded, it should be possible to find a way of dealing with the legal title to the pier.
“Many people who spoke at the meeting, and most of those to whom I have spoken since, consider that the best way of proceeding is to set up a charitable trust, with a view to acquiring the pier and exploring the cost and best means of restoring it.
“This will probably require another meeting to form a steering committee. I am happy to facilitate such a meeting and anyone interested in this suggestion should please email my office at owenj at parliament.uk.
“The further meeting will take place after I have had my discussions with the council.”
ENDS
To repeat, the Colwyn Bay pier meeting was astonishingly well attended; even more people turned up than to the Walton meeting a couple of years ago. Sadly, not everyone had received the message that pre-booking was desirable; the consequence was that an estimated 200 had to be turned away. If you weren’t able to get in, apologies, but the very fact that you were turned away underlines how passionate people are about the pier.
And passion there certainly was in the council chamber. A large number of people (including this blog’s commenters, David Curtis and Monty Slocombe) spoke with great feeling about how much they wanted to see the pier restored. The pier, it seems, has become a symbol of Colwyn Bay’s relative decline; the desire to see it restored is also the desire to see the town regenerated.
I was truly sorry that Conwy county council decided not to send officer representation to the meeting; it is true that litigation with Mr Hunt is continuing, but I feel there was no reason why a representative could not have attended and listened quietly to the views expressed. County and town councillors were, however, present and all credit to them for that.
Shows of hands revealed that an estimated 90 per cent or more of the audience wanted to see the pier restored, with a similar percentage willing to contribute financially to the project. A large number appeared also to be willing to explore the possibility of forming a new charitable trust as a vehicle for the pier’s restoration.
My next step is to arrange a meeting with Conwy’s chief executive to discuss further progress. It is essential that Mr Hunt, the county and the pier administrators enter into active dialogue to resolve the current legal dispute. It would be tragic if further delay made the pier’s restoration even more of a challenge.
My thanks to fellow North Wales bloggers (especially Oscar, John Oddy, Jason Weyman and Chameleon) for helping to publicise the event.
And, most of all, my thanks to the people of Colwyn Bay for the passion and fighting spirit they showed last night.
A very long and busy day.
The pier meeting at Colwyn Bay town hall was extraordinarily well attended, and sadly two hundred or so had to be turned away, because we simply couldn’t accommodate any more.
I’ll blog about it tomorrow, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I turn in now.
