With a public rally 0n castle Toward coming up on Saturday, 17th January, the situation remains conflicted.
Dunoon Councillor Michael Breslin sent a Christmas message to his fellow councillors who voted to offer the neglected council property, Castle Toward in Cowal, to the South Cowal Community Development Company [SCCDC] at a professionally disputed full price with a loan, whose repayments were to be delayed for three years [totting up compound interest] – but which they were fully aware the community company could not afford to accept.
The only possible interpretation of this action was that it was contrived to make the council look helpful and constructive where in fact it made it impossible for SCCDC to buy the property in the community interest.
Were SCCDC then to have to retire, it would leave the council free to do whatever it is that Councilllor Walsh wants rather than what Councillor Breslin wants.
We are putting this in bald terms because we feel that at the heart of this standoff is a Dunoon councillor who, as a serial council leader, has enjoyed unchallenged power [which he has often abused] and – facing for the first time an Alpha male challenge on his own patch – is determined not to let the impertinent interloper have his way.
Like Councillor Walsh, Councillor Breslin has led a major and complex establishment – Argyll College – which he also created after the idea for the college had failed in the hands of at least two previous efforts.
This makes Councillor Breslin, who went to the embryonic Argyll College from HIE, a force to be reckoned with in public sector management and leadership experience – not the level of independent mind and experience in scrutiny that Councillor Walsh has had to confront before.
This situation looks to us to be more like ‘Gunfight at the OK Corrall’ than anything that could be considered a rational counter proposition.
If the Council sold to SCCDC at their bid level, it would save around £25k a month in the current cost of insuring and securing Castle Toward – and it would add £750,000 to add to its capital pot.
If the council forces the retirement of SCCDC from the attempt to purchase the property, it will have no capital enhancement and will have to continue to pay £25k a month for no return whatsoever while it tries to flog the property elsewhere – a tough ask in the current lending regime.
Councillor Breslin’s Christmas challenges
In his Christmas message, Mr Breslin asked the following questions of Council Leader, Dick Walsh and Deputy Leader, Ellen Morton:
’1: What advice from officers was sought prior to the meeting on the advisability of proposing a motion with a £1m loan on offer, specifically:
- a: What were the risks to the council in offering such a loan, especially when the paper already said that “the business case contains serious risk and uncertainty”.
- b: Was any work done on the consequences of loan repayments on the cash flow forecast submitted by SCCDC and were any figures shown to you?
- c: Why did the motion propose a £1m loan when, on page 407 of the papers, SCCDC had already made clear that “the repayments would be unaffordable”?
2: If no advice was asked of officers on the above, why not?
3: Was any of the advice that may have been provided to you discussed with all members of the administration?
4: Were they all fully aware of the likely effect on the community buyout?’
Councillor Breslin sent this to all councillors and also asked some key administration councillors some questions of their own, saying to each:
‘You will have seen my email below sent to the leader and his depute.
‘Given the fact that there were there 3 clear pointers to the fact that the SCCDC could not and would not take on a loan as now approved by P&R, I have some questions for you as a supporter of the motion:
1. Were you fully aware of the statement in the papers by SCCDC that such a loan wasn’t acceptable?
2. Some simple arithmetic applied to the figures in the papers would surely have alerted you to the scale of the financial problem SCCDC would have in taking on such a loan. Were you therefore fully aware of the consequences for the company if such a loan was approved and accepted?
3. You heard me say twice prior to the vote that such a loan would kill the project stone dead so what were your reasons for supporting the motion please?
4. Was there some pressure applied to you before the vote, eg were you asked to support the motion by the leader or the depute?
‘I would appreciate hearing from you by Wednesday 7 January. In the interests of accountability to the disappointed if not angry people in Cowal, your reply (or no reply) will be made public.’
The Leader and Deputy Leader both replied. Of the others those who replied were: Provost Len Scoullar; Councillor Roddy McCuish; Councillor Aileen Morton; and Councillor Gary Mulvaney. Those who did not reply at all were: Councillors James McQueen, Alastair MacDougall and Robin Currie.
When you’re a councillor fighting for a community in your Ward that is determined to take responsibility for securing its own sustainability and is facing googlies tossed down by a council which currently has no economic development expertise whatsoever and which has [mis]managed Argyll into being one of Scotland’s bottom-feeding local economies, you don’t mince your words.
Councillors Breslins’s combative challenge produced equally combative responses from the feisty Mortons, Deputy Leader Ellen and her daughter, Aileen, Lead Councillor for Education, both of whom came out scrapping.
Provost Len Scoullar, on the other hand, was reasoned and courteous.
Former Council Leader Roddy McCuish, who had been issued a very personal challenge on grounds which Councillor Breslin believed to be correct but were shown to be mistaken, replied with a cutting edge to the facts he supplied.
Councillor Mulvaney kept his powder dry and applied a bar to publication of whatever he said to Councillor Breslin.
Council Leader Walsh, responded with his own narrative, at one point defending against what Councillor Breslin had suggested was a less than satisfactory information base upon which councillors had been asked to vote, saying: ‘My position is that Members had adequate information to allow an informed decision to be taken, and that is what happened.’
The blunt truth is that, coming from this source, this particular assurance could never be accepted by anyone familiar with Council Leader Walsh’s long established form. This is the man who perfected the technique at Argyll and Bute Council of keeping councillors as uninformed as possible on matters where he had determined on a specific outcome. We have witnessed at first hand, for example, councillors trooping into the chamber for the start of a meeting at Kilmory to pick up brick sized documents on the budget proposals, having had no earlier sight of them.
And in the Castle Toward issue itself, the key paper from council officers for a meeting in late 2014 at which the members of the Policy and Resources Committee were supposed to tale a decision, was withheld until after working hours the night before – at which point Councilor Walsh emailed the committee members to postpone the matter, saying that the paper was not ready.
Since officers had been working on this for a very substantial period, this statement was not credible. The only interpretations were that the paper was not acceptable to the Council Leader and was not allowed to go forward; or that this was more game playing from one of the most persistent devotees of the genre.
The bottom line is that, whatever else of interest they said, not one of the respondents directly answered the questions put to them. [THe texts of the exchanges between the challenger and the respondents are in a document attached below.
The PGL position
The Castle Toward mansion house and estate have been neglected since they came into council ownership around the turn of the century.
SCCDC have lined up the outdoor experience specialist, PGL to lease the property in the event of their being able to complete a purchase.
The council has not maintained the property, never mind investing in it.
If SCCDC were able to give PGL a long lease, we understand that PGL have pledged to invest £4 million of their own money in the project to renovate the mansion house and the grounds and build 2 accommodation blocks for about 370 of their guests – which, with SCCDC’s own planned investment in the gatehouse, walled garden and cottages, comes to a total investment in the property of between £8m and £10m.
PGL’s position is said to be that this arrangement benefits them because SCCDC would be able to source capital funding that neither PGL nor the council could access to renovate the house. They say the numbers would not add up if they were either to buy directly from the council or themselves fund what SCCDC would otherwise do.
Note: The email exchanges between Councillor Breslin and those who responded are all here.
