CABINET members praised the intervention of a key scrutiny committee in helping to secure a reduced price for the former Ocky White building.
On Monday (October 8), members of the County Council dealt with the purchase of the department store on Bridge Street, Haverfordwest.
Members agreed on a purchase price of £1/4m for the building and praised scrutiny committee members for helping to add impetus to what had been ongoing negotiations with its owners.
The landmark retail outlet has become increasingly dilapidated since its closure in 2013 and is a key part of the Council’s scheme to regenerate Haverfordwest’s Town Centre.
On September 10, the Cabinet had – with some misgivings – approved a proposal that the building should be bought at a price of £460,000 pending a decision on redevelopment or demolition. The Council had secured Welsh Government grant support towards the cost of redeveloping the building.
However, six councillors – Mike Evans, Phil Kidney, Pearl Llewellyn, Mike Stoddart, Viv Stoddart and Jacob Williams exercised their right to ‘call in’ the Cabinet’s decision for further scrutiny by the Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee, chaired by Conservative leader Rob Summons.
The grounds for the call-in were:
– That the decision represents particularly poor value for taxpayers’ money
– That the report to cabinet does not present the full financial picture
That meeting took place on September 28. At it, several councillors took the chance to attack the Cabinet’s decision, including – ironically – Cllr Jamie Adams, whose late IPPG administration was behind the original development scheme to buy and redevelop the property.
Those plans were subsequently discounted as unviable when the current administration decided to seek an assessment of the site’s commercial prospects.
A common theme to the Committee’s complaints was that the price agreed of £460,000 was ‘vastly over the top’.
Jacob Williams described it as ‘scandalous’, before adding: “The significance of the building is overhyped. It has a listed building as an annexe and we would be rewarding a property owner of a not particularly attractive building with taxpayers’ money.
Cllr Jamie Adams said although the scheme had been in the offing for a long time he could not support the decision to invest in the building saying ‘it is incompatible with financial demands’.
Then Head of Property, Barry Cooke, told the Committee that the price agreed was too high but added that the owners won’t sell for anything less than that. “If we can’t acquire the property we will not able to proceed with the first step. It is a difficult building to value but we did get them down to £450,000 but they have quoted more than that,” he added.
It was those committee discussions and the pressure that they placed on the Ocky White buildings’ owners that were credited by Cabinet members with driving down the purchase price.
Reintroducing the matter to his Cabinet colleagues, Labour leader Paul Miller emphasised that the regeneration of Haverfordwest Town Centre was something to which he was passionately committed. Cllr Miller added that the Council’s intention was not simply a ‘one-off’ purchase but part of a much larger regeneration scheme and should be seen in that context.
Cllr David Lloyd said that the effect of scrutiny on the purchase price previously agreed was ‘proof that local democracy works’ and urged his Cabinet colleagues to use ‘courage and ambition’ to drive the regeneration project forward.
Cllr Bob Kilmister, who had at best been sceptical about the original plans to buy the premises, said that while he had been won over on the purchase price element, he still had concerns about the potential for an ongoing revenue cost to the Council if the building remained under-occupied or unoccupied after the project’s completion. He added that the Council simply could not afford that revenue cost but that he was encouraged that Cllr Miller and officers were examining ways to avoid further liabilities building up.
Cllr Neil Prior, who was sceptical of the wisdom of buying the Ocky White building in September, commended those negotiating on the Council’s behalf for achieving such a significant reduction in price in the ten days between the Services Committee’s meeting on September 28 and the Cabinet meeting.
It was proposed by Cllr Paul Miller and seconded by Cllr Bob Kilmister that the former Ocky White building be bought for £250,000 and that further plans be drawn up for the redevelopment of the site with all options – including demolition – remaining on the table.
The motion was carried unanimously.

Cllr Paul Miller