Politics

Independent Group’s claims debunked by Cabinet Member for Finance

Published

2 years ago

February 23, 2024

Jon Coles

Council is in turmoil as councillors grapple with how much to increase Council Tax
Cabinet Member for Finance says Council Tax claims made in an email wrong

A CLAIM made in an email from the opposition “Independent” Group (IPG) to Council Leader David Simpson is ‘wrong’.

The email’s central claim that householders could be, in three years, paying an extra £1000 in Council Tax, has been debunked by Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Alec Cormack.

In this week’s news section this newspaper reports on that emailed claim.

The email says that the current administration could increase council tax by 16.31% not only for 2024/25 but also increase it by the same amount in 2025/26 and 2026/27.

That claim is wrong, Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Alec Cormack has said.

The Council’s Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP), to which Cllr Murphy refers to as the authority for his claim, states that after a 16.31% rise for the next financial year, a 7.5% rise will be needed in the following two years to balance the books over three years.

A further point the email makes, referring to the current rate of consumer price inflation, is also an irrelevant and egregious point.

Former Council leaders Jamie Adams and John Cwmbetws Davies, who sit on the IPG benches, know that the consumer inflation rate has nothing to do with inflationary pressures on the Council. Those pressures are cumulative and involve – amongst other things – energy prices, the cost of delivering services, staff pay rises and their accompanying pension contributions.

To pretend that the rate of inflation consumers face when buying goods in shops – and food inflation remains in double digits – has much of anything to do with the cost pressures facing employers and service providers is demonstrably false. Those making the claim either do not understand how inflation works or are disingenuous.

Giving the IPG the benefit of the doubt, the email’s author(s) are fools rather than knaves.

MURPHY’S LAW AS IPG GO FOR BROKE

The email, sent by Cllr Huw Murphy on behalf of the “Independent” Group, also contains a veiled threat to throw the Council into turmoil by voting down the annual budget and Council Tax resolutions.

The local authority may become insolvent if the Council cannot or councillors will not set a balanced budget. If that happens, local government commissioners will take control of the Council’s operations.

While that is an extreme event, it is not without precedent in Wales.

When Ynys Mon Council was riven by internecine strife and unable to perform its functions, the Welsh Government stepped in and took control. However, that had nothing to do with that authority’s financial position.

Local government commissioners are running several English councils after financial disasters. In those councils’ cases, speculative investments, and in Birmingham’s case, a devastating legal case, left them unable to fund statutory services.

The results have been massive service reductions, large hikes in Council Tax (from bases much higher than Pembrokeshire’s), and huge job losses.

The idea that the fault for that would lie with the Cabinet and councillors supporting the current proposal is laughable.

Suppose the Council descends into effective insolvency because councillors prefer striking poses to doing their jobs. In that case, the fault will be wholly on the IPG and anyone who supports their shameless manoeuvring.

Their ultimate goal is regaining control of the Council at May’s Annual General Meeting. Anything they do beforehand, including at March 7’s budget meeting, serves that end.

The “Independents” know that if the Council doesn’t significantly raise the Council Tax this year, it must make much larger rises in future years.

The IPG is gambling that, by the time those budgets are set, it will control the Cabinet and avoid making those rises by their favoured method of gutting services, avoiding expenditure on essential projects, and firing workers.

An IPG leader and Cabinet will make sad noises about those and blame its predecessors.

IPG REFUSED TO SWALLOW OWN MEDICINE

It is not as if the IPG is without its own ideas.

Cllr Murphy’s email artlessly reveals the true position.

As things stand, no alternative budget exists before the Council on March 7.

But there could have been.

The IPG produced its own budget and discussed it with the Council’s Director of Resources, Jon Haswell.

Mr Haswell, or so Mr Murphy claims, said that some of what the IPG proposed was feasible and would result in a lower-than-proposed Council Tax increase.

They baulked when Mr Haswell told the “Independent” delegation the size of the rise their proposals would entail.

In other words, the combined brainpower of the “Independent” Group came up with a practical alternative that would have reduced the size of the Council Tax rise, balanced the books, and met the Council’s statutory obligations but – and for entirely self-serving political reasons – pulled the plug on it.

That throws the 7.5% increase Cllr Murphy’s email refers to into stark relief.

It shows his “suggestion” is nothing more than a meaningless gesture that the “Independent” Group KNOWS is undeliverable. It attempts to blackmail the Cabinet into agreeing to a lower rise by raising the threat of political chaos, even though the “Independent” Group KNOWS the 7.5% figure is nonsense.

The IPG would rather blow up the Council and rule the wreckage than do anything constructive.

They will not bear that shame alone. If the Conservative group supports the “Independent” Group’s game-playing, the political fallout in an election year could be highly damaging in Mid and South Pembrokeshire, a seat it hopes to win.

Doubtless, there will be behind-the-scenes scuttling as the players of political games try and get a meaningless “compromise” over the line. They face the obvious question: how many social workers, teachers, and other job losses are you prepared to countenance for the sake of a sordid deal?

Business

Pembrokeshire Broad Haven holiday park works refused

Published

2 hours ago

May 6, 2026

Bruce Sinclair - Local Democracy Reporter

A DEVELOPMENT call for a Pembrokeshire holiday park has been turned down by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

In an application to park planners, Broad Haven Holiday Park, through agent Gerald Blain Associates, sought permission for the relocation of a boat storage area, vehicle shed and play area along with rewilding of adjoining fields at Broad Haven Holiday Park, Broad Haven, near Haverfordwest.

The application was supported by local community council The Havens.

However, an officer report recommended refusal.

Detailing the application, it said: “The proposal relates to the extension of an existing static caravan holiday site into adjacent undeveloped woodland to accommodate the relocation of boat storage, a vehicle shed, and a children’s play area, together with associated ecological mitigation measures. No increased pitch numbers are proposed.

“The development site has already undergone some site clearance, resulting in the removal of approximately 1,000 square metres of woodland.”

It went on to say: “The existing site is already intervisible with the coast, and the proposed relocation of boat storage would likely increase its visibility rather than reduce it. Without supporting evidence in the form of a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA) or Zone of Theoretical Visibility (ZTV) demonstrating that the development would be visually contained, the proposal appears contrary to the guidance contained within the SPG and the objectives of Policy 41.

“As a result, the proposed development is considered to detract from the special qualities of the National Park in this location and would be detrimental to the quality and character of the landscape character area in which the site sits, and as such does not comply [with policies].”

The application was refused on grounds including it being sited within previously undeveloped land within a flood zone, a lack of information on potential impacts on biodiversity, and it is “considered to detract from the special qualities of the national park in this location and would be detrimental to the quality and character of the landscape character area in which the site sits”.

Politics

Calls to reopen access to top of Pembrokeshire’s Hean Castle

Published

2 hours ago

May 6, 2026

Bruce Sinclair - Local Democracy Reporter

CALLS for permission to replace a decayed spiral staircase preventing access to the top of Pembrokeshire’s historic Hean Castle mansion have been submitted.

In a listed building application submitted to Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, The Trustees of T O Lewis Trust, through agent Acanthus Holden Architects, seeks permission for the removal of a decayed timber spiral staircase and replacement in aluminium, along with pointing and masonry repairs to a flue turret, stairs turret and s bay at the Grade-II-listed Hean Castle, near Saundersfoot.

A supporting statement accompanying the application says the works planned will reinstate the spiral stairs access to the main castle tower, the scheme “aimed at reducing moisture ingress through the thin, walled turrets a replacing a rotten timber spiral staircase 13m tall”.

It says the upper third of the wooden treads in the “existing and very possibly the original spiral staircase” are “now badly decayed where they slot into the equally rotten stringers at this level, to the point that safe access to the turret top is no longer safe”.

It adds: “The replacement of the stairs in timber is a difficult and a very costly exercise with all fabrication and erection carried out likely to have been carried out originally on site. Accessing the turret at high level on the outside is also very difficult and only limited repointing will be possible.

“Ongoing water ingress into the turret would likely lead to further rotting of the replacement timber stairs in the near future.

“Two options have been considered for the replacement of the stairs in metal: Aluminium and Galvanised steel, both with similar cost implications.

“Aluminium is favoured and an acceptable quote has been received for the supply of a sectional staircase with ‘made to measure’ hard wood timber treads bolted to the Newell brackets. The made-to-measure treads will allow us a degree of flexibility with regard to any variance in the diameter of the ‘tube’.”

It says the proposed works will secure long-term sustainability, improve accessibility, and address urgent fabric defects.

The application will be considered by park planners at a later date.

News

Game of Thrones star urges voters to back anti-DARC parties

Published

15 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Tom Sinclair

ACTOR Jerome Flynn has urged voters in Wales to back parties opposed to the proposed DARC radar scheme at Cawdor Barracks, saying the issue could be decided by the next Welsh Government.

The Pembrokeshire-based Game of Thrones star, also known for Soldier Soldier and Robson & Jerome, made the appeal in a video released by PARC Against DARC on Tuesday (May 5), just two days before polling day in the Senedd election.

Radar row enters election campaign

Flynn urged voters in Ceredigion Penfro and across Wales to support Plaid Cymru or the Green Party, saying both parties had pledged to oppose the project.

The Ministry of Defence has submitted a planning application to Pembrokeshire County Council for 27 radar antennas and associated infrastructure at Cawdor Barracks, near Brawdy.

The scheme forms part of the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability programme, linked to the AUKUS defence partnership between the UK, US and Australia.

The MOD says DARC would help detect, identify and track objects in Earth orbit, supporting military and civilian satellite security.

Opponents claim the radar would industrialise part of the Pembrokeshire countryside, damage the setting of the national park, and increase the area’s military significance.

Flynn says project ‘not a done deal’

In the video, Flynn described the election as “probably the most crucial vote we’ve made in 25 years”.

He claimed the next Senedd could play a decisive role in the future of the project, saying: “I’m here to say, it’s not a done deal because Plaid Cymru and the Greens have both made party-led decisions to say no to Westminster.

“We’re not having such a thing on our beloved coast.”

Flynn also described St Davids as “the spiritual home of Wales” and criticised what he called “the most unspeakably abominable planning application” on the edge of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

Campaign steps up pressure

PARC Against DARC said it welcomed Flynn’s intervention and said it had distributed 22,000 leaflets around Pembrokeshire in recent weeks.

The campaign group said First Minister Eluned Morgan’s recent comments on the scheme did not go far enough.

A spokesperson said: “While Eluned Morgan has come out in the final hour to call for DARC to be halted, we fear this does not go nearly far enough.

“Plaid Cymru and the Green Party have both made it their national party policy to oppose and stop DARC, so we have no doubt of the authenticity of their commitment.”

The group is also urging residents to submit objections to Pembrokeshire County Council before the current publicity period ends on May 20.

Welsh Government role

Campaigners say the next Welsh Government could intervene by “calling in” the planning application, meaning Welsh ministers would take responsibility for deciding it rather than leaving the final decision with Pembrokeshire County Council.

That possibility has made DARC a significant local election issue in Ceredigion Penfro, where Eluned Morgan is Labour’s lead candidate, Elin Jones leads the Plaid Cymru list, and Amy Nicholass heads the Green Party list.

Under the new Senedd voting system, voters will elect six Members of the Senedd for the constituency using a proportional list system.

PARC Against DARC said this meant there was “far less need for tactical voting” and argued that voters opposed to the radar could support either Plaid Cymru or the Greens.

Wider concerns

Campaigners have repeatedly claimed that the radar would make Pembrokeshire a potential military target and draw Wales further into US military strategy.

They also say the project raises environmental, health, democratic and security concerns.

Supporters of the scheme argue that space monitoring is becoming increasingly important as satellites are used for communications, navigation, defence and emergency infrastructure.

Flynn ended his video by saying: “Vote with your heart because we can make a difference here, we could put in a government that cares about our land, our people and our environment.”

Whatever the outcome of Thursday’s election, the intervention by one of Pembrokeshire’s best-known residents is likely to keep the DARC controversy high on the political agenda.