How did the Wellness Project hit the rocks?

City Deals are a UK government project to stimulate economic growth by allowing local government and local businesses to invest in city based projects. They are part of a policy produced by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in Westminster and were designed as agreements between the UK Government and UK Cities. The UK Government issues a large grant and permission to borrow a much larger sum of money. Private companies are to match fund the investment.

The problem for Wales is that we have no large cities by European Standards. It is true that sizeable cities appear to generate much of the economic growth in Western Economies. So areas without big city hubs have, in their schemes, been encouraged to pretend that they are big cities or large , populous regions equivalent to cities, and embrace these deals on the same sort of terms, presumably expecting the same promised benefit.

How could this go so wrong in an area like Llanelli?

These deals were offered in “partnership” with local government and in our area are run by the County Councils under the leadership of our Carmarthenshire Chief Executive, Mark James.

In Llanelli the Delta Lakes Wellness Centre proposal, already once rejected at Welsh Government Level, was resurrected to take advantage of this “free” money.

However, something has gone wrong. Perhaps the County Councillors should have been suspicious about the lack of a business plan when they were asked to approve the whole plan.

I recall former Council leader, Meryl Gravell in a full council meeting ,confidently explaining that the wealthy people on the new coastal estates close to the estate would use the fitness and private medical facilities ,while less well healed people from South Llanelli would have jobs in cleaning, maintenance, security and social care.

This was never submitted as a business case. The actual business case document has recently emerged but has not been seen by anyone except the Plaid Cymru led Council Executive Board and the senior council officers.

Later Mark James would remark that a drug company was interested in the site as the nearby stable population was ideal for testing new drugs. Again, no actual evidence put forward. The promised new jobs rose from “up to 400” to over 2000 , again without detail or explanation. May the business case, when released after the investigations, will reveal all.

The local Health Boards and Universities were “on Board” but not in any position to help fund the expensive project. The “private partner” turned out to be a company in debt and without access to the millions needed to match fund the deal.

The problem now is that the project is on hold due to concerns about the viability and propriety of the deal. The County Council are now reassuring us that they can deliver the project in other ways. The question is whether this ever was a good deal at all? Hopefully the truth will out as external investigations reveal what was really going on?

Siân Caiach,