UPDATE: 6.15pm

THE AM for Monmouth has said the Welsh Government is “rotten at the heart” after a report showed it made multi-million pound losses in a fields-selling scheme.

The government was criticised for potentially not getting “value for money” when it sold off 15 sites across Wales in a package deal in 2012.

One of these sites included the Wonastow Road fields in Monmouthshire, which it sold to a developer for around £900,000. The same land was sold for £12 million in April this year.

Under a ‘claw-back’ arrangement, the Welsh Government will be able to get back a proportion of the increased value.

But if it had kept the fields and obtained planning permission it could potentially have sold the land for the entire £12 million.

Monmouth AM Nick Ramsay said: “I’m extremely concerned by the Auditor General’s findings that the Welsh Government has effectively been selling off land at well below the price they could have received for it and certainly below normal market value.

“At the end of the day this wasn’t the Welsh Government’s land to undersell - it was public land and the public trusted the politicians to look after their interests, something which clearly did not happen.

“I’m particularly concerned to see the former Welsh Development Agency land at Wonastow in Monmouth on this list. That land was converted from industrial to housing use in order to satisfy the Welsh Government’s unreasonable demands on Monmouthshire Council to build ever more houses.

“It now transpires the Welsh Government sold off land at a fraction of its value and then made it available for development to satisfy its own housing demands. It’s all too cosy and suggests something rotten at the heart of the way the Welsh Government works. The public has the right to ask what on earth is going on?”

When questioned by Mr Ramsay during a plenary session in the Senedd chambers yesterday (Wed), Natural Resources Minister Carl Sargeant said he would take the findings “very seriously”.
But he insisted the Welsh Government had been “brave” to bring forward such a programme during the UK financial crisis.

The Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales, an arms-length body set up by the Welsh Government, sold all the sites together for just under £22 million in 2012 in an attempt to raise money for town centre regeneration.

But a report from the Wales Audit Office published yesterday (Wed) claimed many of the sites were undervalued and they could potentially have made at least £8 million more as if the sales had been handled differently, looking at methods like auctions.

A Welsh Government spokesman said it would consider taking legal action to recover any loss “should there be clear evidence of RIFW’s land assets having been sold at undervalue”.

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THE Welsh Government has been accused of getting a bad deal after it sold fields near Monmouth for about £900,000, when just three years later the same land sold for £12 million.

A report criticised the government for potentially not getting “value for money” when it sold off 15 sites across Wales in a package deal in 2012.

The Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales, an arms-length body set up by the Welsh Government, sold them all together for just under £22 million in 2012 in an attempt to raise money for town centre regeneration.

But a report from the Wales Audit Office published today claimed many of the sites were undervalued and they could potentially have made at least £8 million more as if the sales had been handled differently, looking at methods like auctions.

After Guernsey-based company South Wales Land Developments arranged planning permission for the Wonastow Road fields in Monmouthshire, it sold them on to a developer for £12 million in April this year.

Under a ‘claw-back’ arrangement, the Welsh Government will be able to get back a proportion of the increased value.

But if it had kept the fields and obtained planning permission it could potentially have sold the land for the entire £12 million.

The body which sold on the land was set up to invest in regenerating town centres and was able to access match funding from the EU from the properties sold.

But the Welsh Government said the sites were sold when the country was in the depth of a recession to kick-start the country’s construction sector, so there were not a lot of people able to buy large amounts of land.

A spokesman added: “We would consider taking legal action to recover any loss should there be clear evidence of RIFW’s land assets having been sold at undervalue.”

Only two of the sites sold were subject to ‘claw-back’ clauses – allowing the seller to claim back some money if land goes up in value.

However, a spokesman for the Welsh Auditor General said such clauses could have been considered for nearly all of the sites – not just those at Monmouth and Lisvane in Cardiff.

Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies said yesterday: “Essentially the report confirms what we feared all along; that Welsh Labour ministers effectively sanctioned the sale of public land for peanuts. It’s an absolute disgrace and action must be taken.”

He said ministers found to be at fault should face disciplinary action, potentially including the sack, saying: “Not only have millions of pounds been lost to the public purse as a result of this land sale, it is now clear that there was little or no oversight of the fund by Labour ministers”.

Another site mentioned in the report is Imperial Park in Newport, close to the old LG site. But the report said this land might actually have been overvalued in the sale by over £1million.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: “We accept the Wales Audit Office findings that while adequate arrangements were not put in place during 2010 to provide accountability and oversight of the fund to Ministers, subsequent actions taken by Welsh Government Ministers were appropriate.

“In particular, the decision to bring the fund under direct control in 2013 cleared the way for the Wales European Funding Office to recover the EU funds and redeploy them. As a result, all the EU funding has been used to support projects across Wales.”