[Updated below] It seems as if there may be another expression of interest in Castle Toward. This is said to have been communicated to Monday’s meeting of his administration by Council Leader and Dunoon Councillor, Dick Walsh – but flatly denied by him the following morning when he attended the Bute and Cowal Area Committee meeting to vote for himself in a motion of No Confidence.
Mr Walsh was apparently challenged hard on the issue by a member of the public present at the Area Committee as, ahem, an observer – to whom he replied that he was not aware of any other interested party than South Cowal Community Development Company [SCCDC].
It’s not hard to see that at that particular meeting, had he repeated what he had passed on to his affiliates the night before, he might have been chased down the hill from Castle House by incensed supporters of the attempt to buy the property for the community.
It is alleged that, at the administration session the night before, the Council Leader not only informed his colleagues of the existence of a new expression of interest but identified it – as Acorn [something] – which a resourceful supporter of SCCDC has identified as likely to be Acorn Property Group.
A look at the company’s website sees it identify itself as ‘a flexible joint venture partner, working with local Borough Councils, Housing Associations and Charities’.
This would suggest that the big wheeze is the council going into business as a joint developer at Castle Toward.
This is the Council that has been unable to achieve more than a percentage of what was promised to result from the CHORD charade – but has spent an immodest fortune on consultants fees; the council that spends more time and energy on obstructing serious local businesses than it does in helping them; and the council that has let Argyll slide unhindered into becoming an economic basket case.
But hey – looks like they might be about to take to the Monopoly board with other people’s money [yours].
If this is indeed the game, one thing is certain. What happens will feed satirists in Argyll for a decade.
Is this the council with the business nous to spend public money on speculative adventures? How much will they spend on consultants fees this time, to make such a jolly someone else’s responsibility when it turns up its toes?
This is, though, the council that already has form in Oban in asking itself for permission to build a gazebo cum bus shelter cum wind tunnel on the North Pier – and graciously granting itself that permission, for one of the daftest projects yet seen.
Anyone who has concerns about the SCCDC business case for Castle Toward has seen nothing until they’ve seen that the Council’s ‘business case’ for its own approval [not hard to get] solemnly concluded that the proposed confection for the Pier would generate – wait for it – 59 jobs over ten years. Oh yes.
These are the business brains who may well see themselves going into a flexible partnership with Acorm Property Group.
In Acorn’s interests, it is to be hoped that they are as flexible as they claim to be – because there is likely to be a point where they have to shimmy fast out of the sort of joint venture this has all the promise of being.
Councillor Michael Breslin blew the whistle on this gig in noting that Councillor Walsh has as yet made no retraction of the misinformation he peddled in yesterday morning’s press. In this he had denied that any council officer had suggested to SCCDC the sort of loan that was arranged to accommodate an anticipated default to the council’s substantial benefit – only to have Mr Breslin supply documented evidence to the contrary, written by the council’s Strategic Finance Director.
Councillor Breslin is now challenging Councillor Walsh to tell the good folk of Cowal which of his conflicting statements on another expression of interest in Castle Toward was the lie.
Update 09.10: Councillor Walsh has written to Councillor Breslin, brassing out both situations.
In spite of the fact that the Strategic Finance Director’s email is in the public domain putting in writing the loan offered to SCCDC in the terms and with the only possible outcome that, in yesterday press the Counckl Leader denied had been made – he continues with that denial. It’s true simply because he says so. Written evidence is somehow irrelevant.
And as far as any other expression of interest in Castle Toward is concerned – he never said it – and here’s the proof of that: ‘For the avoidance of any doubt at no time at the Administration meeting did I advise that there was an expression of interest in purchasing Castle Toward far from it. To clarify further for you the advice that I gave at the Area Committee meeting was the correct position in that I was not aware of any other party interested in purchasing the Castle Toward property.’
It’s toss a coin time, folks. This may be right. It may not be right. The resolute denial of the very special loan terms his chief finance officer has confirmed in writing may be an indicator of the greater likelihood – or it may not.
But any future rooting of little acorns at Castle Toward – or not – will retrospectively validate either position.
