Green Man Festival boss accuses charity of bullying

A charity has been accused of running a campaign of hostility, misogyny and bullying against proposals to develop a farm in Powys that was controversially bought by the Welsh government.

The accusations were made by the Green Man Festival's managing director, Fiona Stewart, in a letter to a Senedd committee.

Usk Valley Conservation Group called the allegations "completely untrue".

Welsh ministers bought Gilestone Farm, in Talybont-on-Usk, for £4.25m in 2022.

Ms Stewart's company has submitted a business plan to become tenants, and intends to maintain a working farm alongside eco-friendly accommodation, events, food and drink production and a hub for start-up businesses.

But there have been local concerns about plans to hold three events a year for as many as 3,000 people.

In the letter, to the chair of the Senedd's Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, Ms Stewart says that her engagement with the local community has been made "more difficult by the hostility, misogyny and bullying behaviour by a small minority of objectors".

She says she had an in-person meeting with Talybont community council and the Powys county councillor of Talybont on Usk after the May council elections in 2022, and after that started to update the community council through the council's secretary.

She then adds "but a wider campaign of misinformation had begun through a splinter group of people against the Gilestone project".

"This later became the Usk Valley Conservation Group, a charity registered in June 2022, which seemed specifically set up to stop the Gilestone project from happening.

"My communication to the community council was spun, ignored or disbelieved by this wider group and used to support the campaign of objection.

"It became clear that productive communication was impossible, and I became concerned about the wellbeing of the members of the community council as they seemed to be coming under intense pressure from the splinter group."

In response Peter Seaman, co-chair and trustee of the Usk Valley Conservation Group, described the allegations as "completely untrue and without foundation".

In a statement he added: "Since these allegations first surfaced some months ago, there has been no evidence provided whatsoever to support them.

"We consider her allegations to be a scurrilous attempt to distract attention from the legitimate concerns about potential impacts of Fiona Stewart's plans on both the environment and the special wildlife of this part of the Usk valley.

"The Usk Valley Conservation Group is a small charity with limited funding whose work is devoted to conservation of the environment and wildlife here. We are currently funding a special wildlife project in this area."

The minutes from a meeting of Talybont community council from March 2023 acknowledged that relations between Green Man and opponents of the Gilestone Farm scheme had soured.

It read: "It was noted that there had been a number of instances where representatives of Green Man and elected local members had been individually targeted by opponents of the proposed scheme.

"It was also noted that this had become increasingly personal over the past number of months and it was agreed that such behaviour was not acceptable."

In the letter to the committee Ms Stewart confirmed that the Green Man Festival itself, which attracted around 25,000 people to the nearby Glanusk Estate in August, would not move to Gilestone.

Earlier this year the auditor general for Wales concluded that the Welsh government acted with "avoidable haste" in buying Gilestone Farm.

Adrian Crompton said that using up unspent funding by the end of the financial year was "the most significant contributing factor driving the pace of the Welsh government's decision-making process".

The Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee will discuss the letter on Thursday.

Additional reporting by Adrian Browne