IT RECEIVED over £1m in public funding, but the ownership of the upmarket Slebech Park Hotel is shrouded in mystery , The Herald can reveal.

In 2003/2004 the local authority approved European Regeneration and Development Funding of £1,026,410 for the creation of a 38- bed residential conference centre, specifically designed to provide a premium level of accommodation and state of the art conferencing facilities. Further funding for the project was obtained from both the Welsh Tourist Board and the Welsh Government.

It was claimed the whole project would cost £6m, but later assessments of the investment placed the figure at nearer £4m, meaning that one quarter of the cost was borne by the public purse.

The prestigious hotel sank into administration in November 2011 and was placed on the market the following spring for £1.95m.

At the time, the hotel’s owner, Mr Geoffrey Phillipps, said that he hoped to buy the hotel back from the administrators.

In August 2013, it was announced that the hotel had been bought out of administration.

The investment was claimed to have protected the jobs of 20 full time staff employed at the venue while it was hoped the investment would create another 45 extra jobs over the next three years.

However, The Herald has discovered that the hotel and a portion of neighbouring land is owned by a company registered outside the UK for tax purposes.

Traverse Developments Ltd is shown as completing its purchase of Slebech Park in September 2013 for the sum of £1,826,615. The company is registered in the British Virgin Islands.

The data has come to light following a series of articles in Private Eye magazine. Having linked thousands of land title registries to specific addresses and used the Freedom of Information Act, researchers managed to track all leasehold and freehold interests acquired by offshore companies between 2005 and 2014 and have placed that information online.

Property investment and development companies routinely use offshore corporate vehicles to own major buildings to achieve capital gains tax and stamp duty advantages.

And Slebech Park is by no means the only slice of land in the county to have a Caribbean connection.

In Milford Haven, a significant tranche of waterfront land on the opposite bank from the Blackbridge development site is owned by another BVI registered company.

Duncliffe Finances Ltd are shown as having purchased the land in 2008 for a stated price of £1.2m.

BVI companies are heralded on one incorporation site as ‘exempt from tax, suitable for virtually any international business activity, has a flexible organizational structure, is not burdened by excessive reporting and record-keeping requirements, and maintains strict confidentiality provisions’.

Confidentiality is one of the key features of the BVI Business Company as details of the company beneficial owners, directors and shareholders are NOT part of public record. Register of Members, Register of Directors and all Minutes and Resolutions by the Company are kept only at the offices of the Registered Agent in complete confidentiality.

It seems, therefore, that the benefit of over £1m of public money is being felt most keenly by shadowy shareholders of a secretive corporation based thousands of miles away whose main purpose is to avoid tax. For the avoidance of doubt, no assertion is made as to the involvement of the previous owners of Slebech Park in such a corporation.