COUNCILLORS have overwhelmingly stated they feel the sale price of £460,000 for the Ocky White building in Haverfordwest does not represent good value for money.

When it was agreed at a meeting of the Cabinet in September that the Council should go ahead with acquiring the building many people were left angry at the decision.

Three days later after that meeting, Cllrs Jacob Williams, Mike Stoddart, Viv Stoddart, Mike Evans, Pearl Llewellyn and Phil Kidney called in Cabinet’s decision saying it was poor value for taxpayers money and that it does not present the full financial picture.

The matter was then brought to an extraordinary meeting of the Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on Friday, September 28.

Before discussion took place members were presented with an option of discussing the matter in open session or in private as two documents had been classed as restricted.

Cllr Phil Kidney said he was ‘very keen’ for the matter to be held in open session as it was a ‘very large amount of money’.

The Councils’ Head of Legal Services Claire Incledon told members that the parties involved had asked for the documents to be restricted.

Cllr Jamie Adams said they had to respect those wishes and proposed that the meeting be held in open session and go into private session to discuss the restricted document if necessary. That was approved unanimously.

Cllr Jacob Williams said there hadn’t been much scrutiny at Cabinet and said it represented poor value to taxpayers. He also said that the price agreed of £460,000 was ‘vastly over the top’ and described it as ‘scandalous’.

He added: “The significance of the building is overhyped. It has a listed building as an annex and we would be rewarding a property owner of a not particularly attractive building with taxpayers’ money.

“I have not yet seen a positive public comment on this proposal. People say this will be a waste of millions of pounds, the purchase price is too high and there is a lot of resentment to the council spending £460,000 on the back of the 12.5% hike in council tax.

“People have said to me the price agreed is way too high, that it has been up for sale and attracted no interest and that it is worth a maximum of £100,000.”

Cllr Mike Stoddart added: “We are offering £460,000 spending £3m on it and ending up with asset of £750,000, even with the Welsh Government loan it is still a bad deal.”

Cllr Viv Stoddart explained that at a meeting of the strategic asset management group in July there were serious concerns that the figures didn’t stack up and called for the Cabinet to look at this again.

Cllr Mike Evans said that other than this committee they had no involvement in this decision and said once the building was purchased the rates on an empty building would be the councils to pick up. He also said there had been no interest in other buildings in the town and that rents in Haverfordwest had ‘fallen through the floor’.

Cllr Pearl Llewellyn said she had listened to people in her ward who were complaining about vacant buildings in Pembroke such as South Quay and added they had said it was nice to see that some councillors have had the balls to call this in.

Cabinet member Cllr Paul Miller said they had given much greater priority to supporting economy in Pembrokeshire and that the aspiration for Haverfordwest was much wider than this one building.

He added: “The acquisition of Ocky White shouldn’t be viewed in isolation, it is the proposed first step in future for Haverfordwest. The grant award is based on refurbishment and this is the option we have pursued so far.

“We need to buy this building to demonstrate our commitment to the wholesale plan for the redevelopment of the town centre.”

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’.

Cllr Stephen Joseph said it did not make sense and said he couldn’t back it as it is ‘fundamentally flawed’ adding it was ‘bonkers’ at a time when everyone is feeling the pinch.

Cllr Di Clements added: “Just because Welsh Government money is available it doesn’t me we should go chasing it. This is taxpayers money, I am not sold on this and demolition is probably the way to go.”

She later added that they were being asked to make a ‘huge leap of faith’ as they did not know the final costs or if the building would be occupied.

Cllr Brian Hall said it was a ‘total waste of money’ while Cllr Tony Wilcox suggested the council should get another independent valuation on the building before having another long hard look at it.

Cllr David Pugh said: “Retailing has changed dramatically, just basing it on retail is not going to work. Business rents have dropped dramatically and there just isn’t the demand for it, I do sympathise, it is a huge problem and there isn’t an easy fix. Something needs to be done or we will just end up with another shambles.

“The revenue implications are huge and I really struggle to make sense of this acquisition, the price is far too high, it is not worth a penny and I can’t support spending £460,000 for a building where we don’t know what we’re going to find.”

Haverfordwest Cllr Tim Evans said a lot of these things should have been done 30 years ago but did not support the sale going ahead at the price mentioned.

Head of property Barry Cooke said he would not buy the building at that price saying it 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 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.

Cllr Williams went on to ask questions of where the £460,000 figure came from and described it as ‘really bad negotiation’ adding it was ‘very dodgy’ if they were to pay that price for the building.

Cllr Paul Miller explained that although Cabinet resolved to buy the building they would need to some further work on the masterplan.

He said: “If once we have done the work we decide we don’t need Ocky White, it needs to be demolished and we wouldn’t accept the grant and refurbish building.”

Cllr Stoddart said that wasn’t the impression the public got and said he did not want to see the authority with another Cherry Grove on its hands.

Summing up he said it was the view of the committee that there was no problem with the council buying the building but that there was a problem with the price.

Cllr Jamie Adams moved that the Committee does not support the decision of Cabinet due to inevitable ongoing revenue risk and that the purchase price offers poor value for this Council. It was seconded by Cllr Pugh and was passed by a majority with Cllr Alison Tudor voting against.