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A damning report from a cross-party group of Assembly Members lays bare the “scandalous” decisions that led to publicly owned land being sold for a fraction of its true value.

Welsh taxpayers have lost out on “tens of millions of pounds”, according to the National Assembly’s public accounts committee.

Land in Lisvane, near one of the most affluent areas of the Welsh capital, was sold at its farming value of £1.8m instead of its housing value of “at least £39m”.

The AMs described the sale as “incomprehensible” and were heavily critical of the Welsh Government and its advisers.

What the committee chairman Darren Millar said:

"Most shockingly, the Commitee found that subsequent sales of this land demonstrate convincingly that the sale did not represent value for money for taxpayers.

"Instead it appears that tens of millions of pounds could and indeed should have been generated for investment in regeneration projects across Wales.

"We believe such a cavalier approach to the disposal of public assets is scandalous."

Mr Millar described the investigation as “one of the most significant and deeply troubling inquiries undertaken by the Committee”.

He described the loss of millions as "inexcusable".

Read more: These are the highest paid Welsh Government civil servants

How much money was involved?

The sale investigated by AMs involved a package of 15 sites sold as a bundle to one buyer in March 2012 for £20.6m.

The committee found clear evidence that several were sold for less than their true value.

A site at Upper House Farm, Rhoose, Vale of Glamorgan was sold for less than £3m. The buyer sold it on for nearly £10.5m, a profit of £7.4m

An Abergele site in North Wales was sold for £100,000 and sold on by the buyer for £1.9m

Thanks to overage deals, the buyer also made a £5.8m profit selling on land at Wonastow Road, Monmouth, which it bought from the Welsh Government for just £1.1m

The 'jewel in the crown', the Lisvane site, was sold for £1.2m when it now has has an estimated value of £39m

Who bought the land?

All 15 pieces of land were sold to a Guernsey-based firm South Wales Land Developments (SWLD) through a sale that was not advertised on the open-market.

The Guernsey-based firm is backed by South Wales millionaire Sir Stanley Thomas.

The 15 sites included farmland and former industrial locations across Wales.

Who handled the sale?

The sale was handled by an arms-length body of the Welsh Government, Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales (Rifw), which had been given the land to sell to raise money for regeneration schemes.

Rifw was advised by two private organisations, property consultants Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) and a consultancy called Amber.

Who did AMs single out for criticism?

Although the key decisions were taken by the board members of the Regeneration Investment Fund (Rifw), AMs focused their criticism on the advice they were given by LSH and Amber and the inaction and lack of oversight provided by the Welsh Government

Lambert Smith Hampton

In particular, AMs heavily criticised the role of London-headquartered property firm Lambert Smith Hampton.

They said they were concerned that one of the company's employees was working for both Rifw, which was selling the sites, and South Wales Land Developments, which was buying the site.

They said: "We recommend that the Welsh Government and Rifw should carefully consider whether any potential cause of action lies against Lambert Smith Hampton (and against Amber in respect of its oversight of Lambert Smith Hampton) regarding:

the advice provided to the Rifw board on the sale; and

the contractual terms of appointment when acting for both SWLD and Rifw.

"The Committee recommends that the Welsh Government should consider referring Lambert Smith Hampton to their professional body".

The Welsh Government

The committee warned the Welsh Government’s oversight of RIFW was “fatally flawed” and “broke down”.

Its members were concerned that “no minutes were kept of meetings to discuss key decisions regarding the sale of the RIFW assets”.

They called on the Welsh Government to act with “urgency” to address “deficiencies in the robustness of its record keeping”.

The committee said RIFW’s board was “not presented with key information regarding the value of the land in its portfolio, or of expressions of interest from potential buyers.”

The Welsh Government responded to the report by stating that £16.5m will be released for regeneration projects in the coming year. The funding will be “transferred from RIFW to the Welsh Government”.

It will be used to “help to create jobs, increase housing supply and improve community facilities across Wales”.

'The jewel in the crown'

The committee focused on why the land east of Lisvane in Cardiff had been included in the sale portfolio when it was earmarked for housing.

The sale did not happen until March 2012, two years after Cardiff council had been forced to withdraw its draft LDP following criticism of the lack of greenfield housing development, increasing the likelihood of the Lisvane land being allocated for housing.

Read more:First Minister apologises over land deal

The site is now set to be developed for 4-5,000 homes and the first phase, the 1,200-home Churchlands development, has been recommended for approval by a planning inspector.

The sale did include a clause that will see the Welsh Government recoup some of the increase in value - and a spokesman said it expected to receive around £11m of the increase when the city's Local Development Plan is approved on Thursday this week".

A further £5m is expected to be generated from another site in Monmouth.

The Welsh Government's response

Communities Minister Lesley Griffiths said: “Today’s PAC report marks the final chapter in the investigations around RIFW.

"We are now in a position to take steps to release this significant funding to benefit community regeneration projects across Wales.

"The triggering of further contractual payments in Cardiff and Monmouth should also generate significant additional funding for investment during the next Assembly term.”

Read more: Does the Welsh Government really care this little about throwing away more than £35m of public money?

Amber's response

“Amber Infrastructure (“Amber”), alongside Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales (“RIFW”) and the Welsh Government, will continue to investigate if there are grounds to take legal action relating to the property advice provided to it by Lambert Smith Hampton, on which Amber was reliant to the same extent as RIFW and the Welsh Government – a crucial fact that the PAC report overlooks.”

Lambert Smith Hampton's response

“We welcomed the opportunity to give evidence to the Committee‎. However, we do not believe the Report fully reflects what was said during the Committee sessions.

“We are disappointed that we did not get time to comment on the Report’s conclusions. We maintain our position that we achieved a good result for our client.”