The Corruption Bay Factsheet
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THE CORRUPTION BAY FACTSHEET THE TRUTH ON CARDIFF BAY: HOW POLITICAL POWER AND INFLUENCE WAS BLATANTLY AND SYSTEMATICALLY ABUSED FOR ALMOST TWENTY YEARS SO THAT VAST SUMS OF PUBLIC MONEY COULD BE USED FOR CORPORATE AND PRIVATE GAIN, AND HOW THE WELSH ESTABLISHMENT AND THE WELSH MEDIA EITHER ACQUIESCED, TURNED A BLIND EYE, OR WAS SIMPLY TOO SCARED OF THE CULPRITS TO DEFEND THE PUBLIC INTEREST. • 'Cardiff Bay', far from being a natural feature like Swansea Bay, is an ad man's term for what is simply Cardiff's former docklands. Those docks became redundant with the decline and then virtual demise of deep mining in Wales, the industry that had made Cardiff the greatest coal-exporting port on earth. The end of King Coal's reign meant that the owner of Cardiff docks, Associated British Ports, found itself lumbered with a massive eyesore and a financial liability. ABP had been privatised by the first Thatcher government in 1982/3. Secretary of State for Wales from 1979 to 1987 was Nicholas Edwards, MP for Pembrokeshire. Edwards had extensive shipping interests, which had given him business contacts and personal links with ABP. In one Commons exchange, after a ship (the Globtik) in which he had interests was involved in some unsavoury business, Neil Kinnock mocked Edwards as, "Globtik Nick, the Pembroke pirate". • Following the privatisation of ABP Edwards spent the next few years working to set up a publicly-funded body to regenerate Cardiff's privately-owned docklands. His work came to fruition in 1987 with the creation of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. The man appointed CBDC chairman was Geoffrey (now Sir Geoffrey) Inkin, former army officer, failed Tory candidate, mover and shaker, quangocrat, neighbour and close friend of Nicholas Edwards. Another of Edwards' associates who joined the new quango was Honor Chapman. She'd been his personal advisor at the Welsh Office. And, according to the CBDC's self-justifying account of itself, she "greatly influenced the strategy for marketing the Bay to potential inward investors." • Inkin also sat as chairman of the Land Authority for Wales. The LAW acquired and made ready land for residential, commercial and industrial development. It had the power of no-appeal compulsory purchase. It could 'smooth out' difficulties with planning regulations. Among other perks the LAW could also get priority treatment from utilities. So Inkin had experience in steamrollering his, and his friends', pet projects through. The CBDC's powers within its fiefdom compared to the LAW·s. The two were neighbours, with the LAW based in the Custom House, very close to Cardiff Bay. For splitting his five-day week between the two Inkin picked up £35,000 a year at the LAW, slightly more at the CBDC. So one question is: did the CBDC buy land in the Bay that was not owned by ABP? When I started asking, just after the CBDC had been wound up, I was confronted with collective amnesia and irretrievable documents. More on this, and a resume of more recent developments in the saga, will be found towards the end of this document. • A key to the commercial success of the development was the £200m+ barrage across the estuary of the Taff and Ely rivers. For this would do away with the 'unsightly' mud flats (plus the birds that fed on them) by creating a permanent lagoon. Thereby making the Bay more attractive to investors, and those buying, leasing or renting land or property from ABP. • Everything was now in place. Associated British Ports had its own private quango pouring public money into the company's failing assets, from which ABP would reap the prOfits. For the beauty of the Cardiff Bay scheme for ABP lay in the fact that even though "the largest waterfront regeneration scheme in Europe" would be paid for with public money, ABP would still own the existing buildings, plus the land and everything that was built upon it. The total figure being quoted for the public money spent in Cardiff Bay is £500m. But given how biased or cowardly the Welsh political establishment and the 'Welsh' (for which read, 'Cardiff') media have been with regard to Cardiff Bay, this figure may be a gross underestimate. • Edwards stood down at the 1987 general election, and was ennobled as Lord Crickhowell. As might be expected from a Tory ex-minister, and in order to get his share of the bonanza he had engineered, in 1988 Crickhowell joined ABP as a director. 1 • Crickhowell was also made chairman of the National Rivers Authority, set up in May, 1988. An interesting appointment; for the NRA, with its responsibilities for flora and fauna, fish stocks, water quality, and associated matters, would be the body adjudicating on the barrage. • Due to the influence of Crickhowell and Inkin - through the Cardiff and County Club, the 'Welsh' media and other agencies - just about any Welsh institution or other body that might add to the Bay's prestige, or in some other way boost ABP's profits, was approached to locate there. While the whole vast project was relentlessly and uncritically plugged in the 'Welsh' media. • The National Rivers Authority raised no objections to the barrage. Or rather, under the curious terms of the Government-sponsored Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill, it was specifically precluded from objecting. An odd situation for a body set up to look into preCisely the kind of issues raised by the Cardiff barrage. But no odder than the various roles Lord Crickhowell filled by 1988: 'father' of the whole scheme, director of the company reaping the profits, and head of the environmental agency that (in theory at least) had the power to scupper the whole business. In the best traditions of a banana republic like Wales, one powerful man could act as both 'prosecution' and 'defence' for a publicly-funded scheme in which he had a vested financial interest! There are a number of ways of interpreting the emasculation of the NRA with regard to the Cardiff Bay barrage. Clearly, if the agency had retained its powers to intervene, then Crickhowell was in a conflict of interest situation. But with the NRA muzzled, Crickhowell was off the hook, able to argue that his hands were tied. It is reasonable to assume that Crickhowell lobbied to ensure that the NRA was neutered vis a vis the barrage. Getting an Act of Parliament to nod the barrage through because too many questions might have been asked if he had personally taken the decision as head of the NRA to okay the barrage - while also a director of ABP. • After a few failed Private Bill attempts to get the barrage scheme through Parliament, a hybrid Government Bill was finally passed in 1993. • Everything seemed to be going swimmingly for ABP-CBDC (which to all intents and purposes was now a single entity), but over-reach was experienced with Crickhowell House; one of the largest office blocks in the city, which no one was interested in renting, leasing, or buying. This little difficulty was resolved when, in 1993, the Welsh Office, then headed by David (now Lord) Hunt, agreed to take out a 2O-year lease at a total cost said to be in excess of £20m. If the figure is anywhere near true, then ABP-CBDC doubled their money with this deal, for Crickhowell House cost around £11 m to build. It was allocated to the Welsh Combined Health Services Authority. As it turned out - and must have been known before the deal was done - the WCHSA never used much more than a third of the building. As there were other, cheaper and more suitable buildings available in Cardiff at the time, Crickhowell House became another example of a Tory administration needlessly pouring public money into ABP coffers. • The major event of the mid-'9Os relating to Cardiff Bay was the Opera House farce. Without delving too deeply into this very complex affair, suffice it to say that a plan was hatched by the Great and the Good to build an Opera House in Cardiff Bay. The leading player in this lengthy and messy business was well, who else? - Lord Crickhowell, this time in his role as trustee or somesuch of the Welsh National Opera Company. A design competition was held, and won by Zaha Hadid, a London-based, Lebanese architect. But her design was never constructed. Partly because it was rejected by public opinion. Partly because it was soon in competition with a new rugby stadium. Those in London disbursing the cash very sensibly decided that Cardiff couldn't have both. A popular and politic decision; for despite there being many opera lovers in Wales, there are many more rugby fans. Throughout this protracted business the arguments used in favour of the Opera House were of the 'good of the nation' variety. No mention was made of Associated British Ports, and the profits it stood to make from having a prestigious centrepiece to its Bay project, sure to pull in big player investors. For although Crickhowell led the campaign, we were asked to believe that this was Crickhowell the opera buff, not the other Crickhowell, of Associated British Ports. 2 After this decision ABP-CBDC felt cheated, and disappointed. Even so, Crickhowell and Inkin tried to make the best of a bad deal by floating the idea that the new rugby stadium should go to the Bay. This plan failed to get off the ground. Being businessmen and pragmatists, the gruesome twosome and their cronies would then have turned to the future . and laid plans to secure some other prestige project for Cardiff Bay.