UKH

Dear Supporters

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your on-going support, our expectations have been blown out of the water, and it’s been heart-warming to see the community come together to support this campaign. It means a great deal to us as staff and volunteers to have received such an enthusiastic backing.

Over the last few weeks we have been hard at work negotiating with the landowner, and have secured letters of support from three local MS’s, the local wildlife trust, outdoor education providers, in order to bolster our case for taking the crag on as a matter of social importance. We provided these to the landowner and then on 22 November we formally made an offer of £8,000 based on previous discussions with the agent. Unfortunately, on the 4th of December, it seems the landowner chose to decline our offer and the land went up for auction despite our best efforts. When we launched the Crowdfunder, we informed the agent of our intention - we brought the planned date of the Crowdfunder forward, as they suggested that they wanted the sale to occur sooner rather than later.

The LPT has not bid at auction on sites in the past, and in this case, we find ourselves in a difficult position - as part of our due diligence as a small charity, and in the interest of protecting ourselves from unexpected and potentially significant liability, we require time to perform due diligence checks - which are even more important when purchasing a site that has formerly seen industrial use. We were assured by the agent that a reserve price of £8000 would be set at auction - as this would be sensible for the landowner, knowing that they had an offer of this amount in hand should the auction fail to surpass it. We had planned to hold our nerve, and assume that this goal would not be met at auction given that our offer is certainly higher than the value of the land for other purposes, and that we would be able to resume negotiations at the previously discussed price with the landowner and their agent.

Surprisingly, upon the launch of the auction and contrary to what we had been told, we discovered that the reserve price may have been set as low as £500. This was quickly reached, putting us in a complex position. We do not want to lose this opportunity to secure this asset for the climbing community, but as a small charity the BMC Land and Property Trust has to be careful about liabilities. We are monitoring the situation and assessing our options from a Land and Property Trust and BMC point of view, and discussing the steps that are available to us given this unexpected turn of events. We take the responsibility and trust demonstrated to us via all of the funds donated from across the UK very seriously and are looking at all viable options. Please look out for additional updates over the next few days - we will be as transparent as possible.

We thank everyone for their continued support.

Tom, Eben & the BMC Land and Property Trust

Serious question - there's a few bids in, is anyone on here in the auction, or aware of any climbers who are?  At current price of low £1000s it would be great if someone could afford to buy it with a view to selling to BMC once their due diligence is sorted.  Obviously a slight risk that it turns out the BMC can't complete, but worst case is that you end up owning a crag....

...with industrial waste consisting of mercury and asbestos with unexploded ordnance! I think the due diligence thing is true for anyone 

wait, wtf? 

"We'll give you £8k for it. You can see we've raised 3 times that and we really really want it so, y'know, we've got a pretty weak hand if you want to ask for more"
"Nah, I'm gonna sell it at auction for buttons"

I must've missed something. Help me out.

Maybe someone has had a contaminated land survey done?

That's obviously the worry! The other possibility is that they couldn't care less whether they get £8k or £500, it's all peanuts, and the auction is quicker. But there's no way of knowing.

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/23915266.nine-mile-point-quarry-auct...

Looks like it was possibly set at £250....

Either way from this article, the auction end is expected to be about 6pm tomorrow, so we don't have to wait long to find out....

The initial price was set to £250, and as soon as the first bid was placed at £500, it was shown as the reserve having been met. As you can imagine we were pretty surprised by this given assurances we'd had from the agent just days before. We rang to confirm though, and they have indeed set the reserve at that remarkably low level (low even ignoring our interest in the land).

We will update as soon as we have more information available.

Apologies if this is a stupid question but regarding the contamination issue:-

Presumably the current landowners have owned this property for a number of years without addressing the contamination issue (assuming they knew about it). So for any prospective new buyer, what are the requirements to do anything about it once purchased?

Is it the case that prior to the contamination being known about, there was obviously no need for action but as a result of a survey and change of ownership, something would need to be done about it?

Ta.

​​​

Bugger, didn't read the thread properly - no mention of the land actually being contaminated, just a concern. I blame the cheapo Lidl Bailey's...

Same question from me, but with the addition of what due diligence are you actually required to do e.g. when buying a house mortgage lender will usually insist on lots of checks and even if buying cash is likely to be so expensive people can't afford to lose their cash, so thorough checks make sense

When buying a crag for relatively little money, would you be obliged to check anything?  I'd only really be interested in making sure I definitely did own it and there weren't any unusual requirements that meant I could end up directly owing somebody money (other than the initial purchase).

Largely theoretical as it's already beyond my budget, but am trying to persuade some of my climbing partners that owning a part share of a crag could be fun

For anyone who is interested in putting a bid in, be aware that sale fees of various types will come to over £3000, on top of the price of the land

The risk is liabilities due to e.g. land contamination. As the owner, one would be legally responsible for clean up, which could cost many thousands. (This might be a reason the current landowner wants to sell at auction, where land is bought without checks). Probably not the case, but as a small charity the land and property trust simply can't take the risk

There might also be legislation in the pipeline for 2024, 25 etc..  which would change the existing owner obligations, hence their desire to offload it now. 

The new owner would take liability for any contaminated land issues arising from the site, but realistically this would only be an issue if they were after a change of use or were going through planning for another reason, or if the site had been identified by NRW as having potential for enforcement under Part 2a. 

I’m sure there are plenty of climbing environmental consultants who would help The BMC with their due diligence 😄

I've sought some advice on the main questions here and will continue to check in as our trustees weigh in and questions presumably continue to arrive. Thanks for the ideas and for continued engagement.

Question 1:

“Presumably the current landowners have owned this property for a number of years without addressing the contamination issue (assuming they knew about it). So for any prospective new buyer, what are the requirements to do anything about it once purchased? Is it the case that prior to the contamination being known about, there was obviously no need for action but as a result of a survey and change of ownership, something would need to be done about it? 

Answer:

Whether the previous land owner has got away with it doesn't affect new landowner's liability, and yes it may be that a recent discovery/realisation has prompted the sale.  We don't know it is actually contaminated - we are assuming there must at least be a modest level of contamination due to the previous use. The new buyer won't have to do anything unless they become a "polluter", e.g. the Environment Agency picking it up through routine water quality testing and identify the land as the polluter.

Question 2:

"What due diligence are you actually required to do e.g. when buying a house mortgage lender will usually insist on lots of checks and even if buying cash is likely to be so expensive people can't afford to lose their cash, so thorough checks make sense"

Answer:

A new landowner is not required to do anything, but it's wise to check for contamination etc. for ex industrial sites. Liabilities are not necessarily correlated with land value, and of course, the greater the liability, the lower the value, all else equal. So the fact it's cheap tells us little about likely liabilities. The purchaser isn't required to do any contamination due diligence, but the risk / consequence of not doing so is not an appropriate position for the BMC. As far as the BMC is concerned, we need to act responsibly in terms of what it is the BMC is there to do for it's Members. Commercially, the BMC should take no more risk than is necessary.

Cheers,

Thanks. I think we'd welcome offers of help from people with expertise in this area. We have been taking advice from BMC volunteers with a lot of experience in property transactions, but we don;t necessarily have specific expertise on contaminated land. This could be useful in terms of learning for future and/or if we do end up in a position where we are able to make an offer for the land (e.g. to the new owner, which isn't impossible).  

Besides the auction nature of the sale, is this purchase much different from BMC acquisition of Horseshoe, in terms of historical use of the site? 

Thanks for the info and answers, genuine question in light of this... Given that the auction ends tonight, and that the fundraiser was initiated quite a while ago, I'm guessing you've already done or actioned the necessary due diligence checks in that timeframe?

Apologies if I sound like a total numpty on this subject, but as you stated the new landowner is not required to do anything, and given the fact that the land has been used as public place without any issues for years, then it's a fairly safe bet for the BMC compared to the risk of someone else buying up the crag and enforcing a ban on climbing entirely?

Not a numpty at all - these are the same questions myself and colleagues have been putting to volunteers who are advising us.

These checks take a long time to perform - we brought the planned date of the Crowdfunder forward in order to give ourselves more time to negotiate with the landowner in order to try and avoid auction and perform these searches (typically they take months and significant investment). So unfortunately no - we have not been able to make those checks nor would we have been able to between being informed of the intention to sell, and the auction itself.

The case being that the landowner isn't required to do anything is not the same as us not having a responsibility to do so both to protect climbers on the site and the LPT against future liability - this is according to the Land and Property Trust trustees who have overseen hundreds of millions of pounds' worth of property transactions over the years and whose experience eclipses my own greatly.

The risk of someone else buying the land and banning climbing is a real one - that is why the campaign exists in the first place - however our campaign having raised so much money means that we are in a position to make a new landowner a really solid offer for the land, or for a leasehold. In short, we are not out of options yet and still have a hand to play. The rug has been pulled out from under us due to bad faith or incompetence but we are adapting.

Agree with Eben's response, and thanks for the questions. Essentially the trustees were unkeen to spend scarce money on checks prior to getting agreement in principle from the landowner to sell, so we focussed our efforts on making a solid offer to the seller (the crowd funds can only be used if we actually buy the crag, so costs on a failed bid would fall to LPT). We anticipated it might still go to auction, but we have been blindsided by it going to auction with a negligible reserve, that's the key event that has put a spanner in the works.

Me being a cynic suggests the following:

Landowner is in possession of a genuine offer of £8k subject to due diligence on contaminated ground etc

Landowner has fair idea of what a contaminated ground survey might turn up - future liabilities could easily be >>£8k

So - landowner decides to get rid of site with negligible auction reserve to entice the gullible.

I support the BMC caution and need for full due diligence. This is a case of - if in doubt don't. The site could easily be bought by a small company with no regard to liabilities, and the company could fold in 2 years time. The BMC L&PT isn't in that position.

Having been involved in buying and selling land in my professional job your assessment is spot on

yep, this is exactly the scenario we are wary of. May not be the case at all, but to an extent we have to assume the worst.

Perhaps this is just my cynical mind at work, but would one solution be the formation of a new ltd company, Sirhowy Crag Ltd, funded with a loan from its sole shareholder, BMC L&PT, to make the purchase?  If it did go completely wrong, just wind up Sirhowy Crag Ltd.

Thanks for the explanation, in a nutshell then, the low reserve has triggered red flags so to speak, that there is something amiss with the sale, so BMC have decided not to proceed.

I wonder if Sirhowy Country Park estates (or whoever owns the rest of it) will bid on it seen as it's a parcel within their land which is a public greenspace... All seems a bit daft, maybe the low reserve has simply been read into too much. 

Either way, best get the projects ticked before it gets condemned. Oh bum, it's winter and soggy for the next 6 months...!

Should we do that though? Depends on their motivation for buying it. The 6 (currently) bidders must either

a) know about the situation and think they can extort a high price from the BMC

b) really enjoy the company of mosquitos and dog shit

c) any other thoughts? I'm out of ideas.

If it's a, I'd rather not see that work out for them.

You'd need to be pretty careful here. A ltd company doesn't mean there is an exemption from all liability, so the company and/or the directors could still be liable for issues on the site.

In reply to Longsufferingropeholder:

I think realistically this will depend on what 'extort a high price' means in practice. If it means a similar conditional offer to what we had originally made, to someone who grabbed a bargain at auction, then I don't see why not - it doesn't matter to us if the landowner wants to make a loss and someone else a win.

It will depend whether there is a credible threat to access - whether we may be able to arrange a leasehold. We will obviously not indulge any price gouging as the importance of not drastically inflating the value of this kind of plot of land has been in the forefront of our thoughts and negotiation tactics throughout. We were clear that the extra funds we have raised are reserved for investing in the site and for admin fees, and so on.

It's perfectly possible that the current bidders are simply looking at a plot of land that is a bargain as things stand - people do keep an eye out for this kind of lot.

In reply to my:

I have spoken to the council owned Country Park - they are not interested at all, they support our bid but have no funds to play with even if they did want the site (which they see as a liability due to the cliff edge and better off managed by us). They were keen on the prospect of helping us manage the site for nature and to facilitate access for us.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I think that could technically be fraud so we'll put that suggestion aside for now...

It's a business model that seems to work depressingly well for used car garages and dodgy builders...

Sold for £10,250.00

Anyone going to admit to having been a bidder??

We will be trying to contact the new owner as soon as possible to see where we stand. 

I am also curious whether any big bucks beneficiaries were/are out there. A man can dream!

I am not sure that the BMC wants to be tarnished with the same brush as used car salesmen and dodgy builders!

Still confused about the approach taken here.... So the tactic after the surprise low reseve, was not to bid in the auction at all, but allow it to change hands to a new owner... then approach them in the hope that they might want to sell it to the BMC... obviously at a higher price than they purchased it for in the auction?!

How does this change the situation of the liability issues that you've quoted as a reason for not pursuing it further - presumably buying you time to perform the stated due diligence checks in a more generous timeframe afforded by a standard exchange / sale as opposed to auction?

Could just donate it to one of them and let the problem solve itself

Please go back and read the thread properly!

As I read it.....

BMC offered £8000 but needed time to do due diligence before the purchase to make sure they weren't left with any potential problems (which are unlikely but could cost millions). They would have had the same time constraint whether they offered £250 or £100000. 

The owner presumably decided they wanted a quicker sale, so put it up for auction. 

BMC were unable to participate in the auction as the due diligence will still take months. 

We made every effort to find a way to bid at auction, believe me. We've consulted everyone from the coalfields regeneration trust, to the NFU, to the ethical property foundation, and given the constraints on us as a charity (LPT) and the information available, we were unable to place a bid. 

In terms of the situation as it now stands, we still have a substantial amount raised, and are in a good position to deal with a new landowner who may be open to leasehold or sale of the site subject to the checks that we have always maintained are needed. 

We don't know who has bought it or why, but we will find out very soon and therefore so will you!

Ah my apologies, I hadn't understood that you couldn't actually participate in the auction. Makes a bit more sense now, thanks!

"The LPT has not bid at auction on sites in the past..." didn't suggest that you weren't able to.

Anyway, fingers crossed the new owners aren't fans of hard sandstone or rusty bolt hangers.

I think you've played it right. In the past, 90s, 00s, I've climbed most places in valleys, it's mainly industrial heritage as you know. There are clean crags like dinas rock, but they are surrounded by likely polluted mines and quarries. I used to know an old guy who cut his leg on rusty metal in a pond at Taffs Well and contracted polio(unrelated digression). It's wiser to risk losing one crag, than end up mired in major problems. The fact they were in a rush sell makes you wonder, it's hardly a ground breaking sum, or a persons pension pot! 

I really hope the locals nicknamed him Taff Unwell...

Don't think so, he got it as a young kid in the 40s, pre vaccine and end up with one leg no longer functioning properly. On the plus side he went on to start up a prosthetics and orthotics company in Cardiff that still exists in his name today. 

I understand your point of view but I'm not sure you'd have the same opinion if you were located in the south west / Bristol area. Decent crags are not two a penny like in other parts of the country and every effort should be taken to maintain access to them. 

I actually think South Wales is like a well kept secret, between the gower and wye valley there are many great small crags(or big like Ogmore) that can provide a good days entertainment. Yeah, climbers shouldn't lose access but buying a poisoned chalice isn't worth the risk. 

I'm off the clock - I honestly feel that you are both right. South (East) Wales is an amazing and underappreciated climbing area which, and Sirhowy is a really special asset to the area (and one that is loved and used by people from Bristol and further afield - international significance if you will). We have great volunteers advising us on the sensible way to balance our responsibility to the organisation, and our responsibility to do the best job we can at our jobs - which is to protect access at this crag, and every crag. 

I feel pretty bad that we weren't able to just easily deliver this by bidding an offer, or having them simply accept our very reasonable offer but it's been a learning experience and it's far from over. We'll keep updating here, via the facebook page, and the crowdfunder page. 

Thanks to all who donated - we are trying hard not to let you down.

Eh? Poisoned chalice? Seems a bit unfair considering all that's been said regarding any contamination is purely speculation based on a low auction reserve? There's "potential" issues like everywhere we climb, does that mean if the same situation arises with other crags then we should let them go too? 

Probably what will happen is... Nothing. New owners won't change anything and sit on it as investment. Happy days

And it's appreciated. Thanks for taking this on.

Are you thinking about a general crag "buying" fund/some way of hiding what climbers are willing to contribute to buy somewhere?

The crowdfunder did have the disadvantage of being visible and hence might have helped people think what they could make from what might otherwise have seemed worthless or even a liability.

Firstly, I think the BMC were right to be cautious, there were just too many unknowns around this site. Given its former use there must be a presumption that there is some contamination.  Whilst this is not necessarily a problem, especially if the land is not going to be developed, the concern is that this gets into ground water.  Without a proper assessment there is a risk, and charitable organisations have a particular duty to be risk-averse.

I have been a professional property manager for forty years and I have a lot of experience of managing and disposing of bits of disused land similar to this.  I don't think it is surprising that the landowner turned down the BMC's original offer. A conditional offer which would require the land to be taken off the market for several months (with no certainty that a sale would then go ahead) is not really very attractive, and I think if I were the landowner I would have taken a similar view and let it go to auction.  The number of bidders and the eventual price achieved shows this decision was justified.

It is quite possible that the low reserve was because the landowner was aware of potential liabilities and wanted to get rid of it quickly. However it is also possible that they had other reasons for wanting a quick sale. Disused land of this nature can be a pain to manage and a significant distraction to a business, and it is entirely possible that the owner just wanted to offload it for whatever they could get so they could turn their attention to other matters. A few grand here or there on the price might not be that important to them when seen in a wider context.

Another reason for setting a low reserve is to attract interest and get the bidding going.  If that was their tactic, it seemed to work here. This sale was reported in the local press, who particularly emphasised the low reserve. There were eight bidders and the price seems to have gone up quite rapidly, and it eventually achieved more than the BMC had offered, and without the conditions the BMC (quite rightly) required.

Much will now depend on the buyer's intentions. If a lease could be agreed which excluded contamination and similar risks that might even be preferable to owning it freehold.

No, but I'd never skip due diligence and buy in haste as the saying goes, especially when you consider the history of many south eaat wales valleys climbing venues. 

I just wanted to say a big well done to the BMC team for their hard work, pragmatic approach & excellent communication with the grassroots.

It's a really refreshing contrast to some of the other recent sagas and criticisms (not the same part of the organisation I know) and demonstrates to me at least the benefit of having the BMC working hard on access rights for us, even if the crag wasn't obtained on this occasion (for the best possibly). Thank you! 

There hasn't been a plan for that specifically but it's certainly an approach taken by our peers in the US, for example, where much of their work revolves around land acquisition. It's a different picture here and there, for example, securing a Scottish-style right to roam would render land acquisition much less important as a tool for securing access.

Crowdfunding for a specific goal was something of an experiment in this regard for us - a test case as to whether there was enthusiasm for funding this kind of work from the community. Apparently there is, with gusto, and grant money available also - two wins on that front. 

In terms of whether it ignited a misguided money grab for this crag specifically, I think it's far too early to call that but we will be taking the possibility seriously and future work will be informed by that.

Thank you all for the understanding and helpful suggestions - there will be a further 'official' update out today but I really appreciate the understanding of the constraints we've had to work with here. 

Reaching out to the new owner today, hopefully.

Thanks for your efforts on this. I've no doubt the team involved put a lot of effort in and whilst in this instance you might not have been successful (so far) I'm grateful that you've tried.

I second Wise comments - Stirling effort, shame it didn’t work this time. 

Eben,

I'd like to add my name to the list saying thanks for all the efforts of the team. A good sensible strategy, well communicated, that will hopefully still deliver the desired access. Fingers crossed

The big questions now are: Who bought it and what on earth can someone do with a scrubby bit of old quarry?

Thanks. Credit is due to the LPT trustees and Neal from the board (and Chair of Wales committee) who have all been a key part of this process doing what they could and used to be paid considerable amounts of money to do for free for us. 

@Gethin Allen, indeed. Tom has put in a request to the auction site and agent to find out who the new owner is and to contact them, no news as of yet but it's early days.