Hay In Danger

I'm afraid this is about to become a campaigning blog.
I'd far rather talk about interesting people I've met, or events going on in the town, and I will still be doing that, but this is far too important to the future of Hay for me to ignore or gloss over. I also apologise in advance for the very long post!

I've never seen so many people at a meeting before! There were a lot in the Parish Hall for discussions of the community centre ten years ago, but I think there may have been more in Booths last night. They didn't put chairs out so more people could get in, and even so there were lots of people standing down the side aisles with no view of the speakers - I couldn't see anyone; I just recognised voices.
A count as people left the meeting came to 205 present, and most of those left their names and contact details for further information.

It started with the Chamber of Commerce meeting last Wednesday. Representatives of the County Council were asked to be present, as the traders of Hay were worried about the rumours about the school site. The County Council said they were willing to meet with the committee of the Chamber of Commerce, but not to say anything in public "because the time wasn't right for them".
There were 30 shop owners there, including Emily of Hay Baby, who gave a report on the meeting. The Council representatives gave very little information - but they did say there was no Plan B.
As it stands, so far there has been no official planning application, and no plans, and no supermarket officially interested. The developers are called Gaufron.

Gareth Ratcliffe took questions from the floor, as our County Councillor, but he didn't know much either. He's asked questions, but hasn't been given answers, so what it amounts to is We Don't Know. It's hard to protest about something when you don't know what's going on behind closed doors.
Apart from the County Council and Gaufron Developers, the other major player in all this is the Sports Association, which have control of the land on which the new school would be built. And it's not just a new school. There's an entire package including a new community centre and care home, and extension to the Doctor's Surgery. Gareth has a problem here of conflict of interests, which means he can't vote in council - he was on the committee of the Sports Association, but resigned due to personal differences with another member.

Now, the plan of having a new community centre, school and council offices came up about ten years ago. There was a lot of effort put in, and meetings including the one I remember at the Parish Hall. There were even detailed plans of the buildings, and money was raised which is still sitting un-used in the bank. And it would all have been on the same site, around the Doctor's Surgery - except that some of that site has now been developed for housing, so there is less space there than there was originally. So this is an idea that has been kicking around for years, with quite a lot of support. But in the original plans, the school site would have been redeveloped as housing. In the current climate, apparently this would not be feasible (never mind that there are a lot of people who need homes), hence the rumours of supermarkets and the use of the phrase "retail use" in the County Council's press release.

So, the problem is, do the benefits of the scheme outweigh the costs? If we can have the new school, will we put up with the supermarket?

It's not that simple, of course, because of all the other things that have been included in the package. This care home, for example, which someone said was planned to be 60 to 80 beds - which is huge. Someone else in the hall pointed out that the funding for this would be the existing funding for Llewelyn Ward in Bronllys Hospital, which is six to eight beds - but that brings in the uncertain future of Bronllys Hospital, too. If Llewelyn Ward is closed there and moved to Hay, that brings Bronllys Hospital another step nearer closure.

There's another point, which surely must count as a conflict of interests - Gaufron Developers are actually a group of companies including PAR Homes, which owns the Doctor's Surgery. The whole bunch of companies have their official address as Lower Gaufron Farm, Howey, near Llandrindod Wells. Someone has been doing some digging through the records at Company House, and from what they were saying at the meeting, the whole lot of them look distinctly dodgy. One of the companies deals with care homes, which is also part of their 'package'.
So why have the County Council got involved with them? Why wasn't the proposed sale of the school site put out to open tender? This is something else only the County Council can tell us - and they're not talking at the moment.

And then there's the public consultation - which has been nil so far. Apparently, all the County Council need to do is to stage a two day exhibition of the plans, after they have signed the contract with Gaufron (which they plan to do in December), where local people will be invited to make comments.
Two days. That's all. And I bet it'll be in the middle of the week when people who want to be there will be at work, and I bet it'll be poorly advertised, and I bet that all the comments that they do get will then be disregarded. Yes, I am cynical, but I have also seen this sort of thing happen before.

One lady at the meeting had actually talked to Gaufron Developers. She said they told her the package is all or nothing - if one part fails, it all fails. They also told her that Gaufron would give one million pounds towards the building of the community centre (one of the companies is also a builder's. I wonder who would get the contract?)

There was also discussion about what the plans would mean for Hay - traffic is one consideration, of course, but Gareth said that the Highways Department hasn't been approached yet, and a lady who knows Malvern pointed out that there had been protests about the Waitrose that was built there, and that went ahead even though it resulted in an extra 300 cars an hour going through the town.

Another lady said that she had spoken to the Legal Affairs Department of the County Council - and they had told her that, if the proposal had gone to open tender, Gaufron would not have been eligible to compete for the tender because of their track record - I paraphrase here, but basically because they are a dodgy bunch.

So, what can we do now?

The first thing is to write letters.
We need to have a meeting with a representative of the County Council so that they can tell us all those things that nobody knows at the moment. One man said that it should be the leader of the Council, Michael Jones - nobody else would do. So we need to write/email etc. to him, and also to Roger Williams our MP and Kirsty Williams our AM, and the chief executive of Powys County Council, Jeremy Patterson.

Contact details are:
Chief Executive Powys County Council Jeremy Patterson chief.executive@powys.gov.uk
Leader of PCC Councillor Michael Jones cllr.michael.jones@powys.gov.uk
Hay PCC Councillor Gareth Ratcliffe cllr.gareth.ratcliffe@powys.gov.uk
or by post to County Hall, Llandrindod Wells, Powys, LD1 5LG
Roger Williams MP info@rogerwilliams.org.uk
Kirsty Williams AM info@kirstywilliams.org.uk
or by post to 4 Watergate, Brecon, Powys LD3 9AN

The sheet given out at the end of the meeting (not everyone got one, because so many people turned up) also suggests some points to include in correspondence:
1. To demand Powys County Council agrees to meet with the community in a public forum before any decision is made to enter into an option agreement with any property developer.
2. To demand that the PCC takes into full consideration our belief that there should be no supermarket on the existing school site due to its impact on local small businesses, increased traffic and the potential for it to change the very nature of the town.
3. Given the lack of public consultation, we demand that PCC does not enter into an option agreement with any developer or begin the planning process until due process has been followed.