Castle Toward meeting: stand up or hold up?

Over 4,500 people worldwide have joined a Facebook Save Castle Toward campaign. Around 120 people filled Innellan Village Hall to standing-room-only on Saturday afternoon, for a public meeting held to discuss the situation at the 150-acre-and-mansion outdoor education centre. It has been closed by its owner, Argyll & Bute Council,  since 13th November 2009, under health and safety regulations.

Yesterday’s audience came to an event that was less the confrontation some had been expecting than a cross between the old guard at Lenin’s Tomb for a May Day Parade – and a three-card trick.

The Politburo was in the line up on the stage – which was deliberately weighty with ‘authority’ and designed to intimidate. On the left were Council senior staffer Douglas Hendry and Council Leader Dick Walsh with, behind them, a line up of staff to brief and advise them and Councillor Alister MacAlister.

This phalanx, in look and in constitution, immediately set the tone of a legalistic, defensive testudo. This session was never going to be an exchange of ideas.

Then there was Tony Miles, Convener of South Cowal Community Council in the Chair.

To the right of the Chair was Dr Christopher Mason, a Director of Actual Reality Learning and Leadership Limited, the company who have, for 16 years, been operating the outdoor education facilities at Castle Toward and Ardentinny for the Castle Toward Trust.

Here was James Bond’s old adversary, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in the flesh. He may have lacked the white Persian cat on his knee but the silky charm, the stage managed bonhomie and the sense of barely underlying menace were compelling, This guy is unlikely to be constrained by the Marquess of Queensberry’s Rules of combat.

Completing the line-up on the right were Argyll’s elected representatives, Jim Mather MSP and Alan Reid MP – with Jim Mather’s off-duty burgundy jumper at least bringing a spot of colour to a sombre stage.

To businesss

This was the three card trick.

The meeting was almost chillingly stage managed by prior agreement between the Council and Actual Reality, with what is now clearly a ‘done deal’ presented and cloaked in all the awkward places.

From certain perspectives, this ‘done deal’ could be seen to be – and actually could be – the answer to keeping the facility going.

The picture, though, will be very different from what the Save Castle Toward campaign envisages – and the heart of the deal is flatly not being divulged.

The session was not a communal exchange of views and contributions leading to the identification of ways forward. It was the public reception of an edited version of what others had already decided.

As one voice from the floor summed up: ‘So, the bottom line is that Actual Reality buy the bit they want and the Council sells the rest for development?’

That’s it. However…

• Actual Reality is unequivocal about its intent to purchase- but will not say exactly what it proposes to buy.
• The Council is unequivocal on its decision to dispose of the property-  but will not say exactly what portion of it will be sold for development.

Actual Reality’s reasons for refusing to give the community the full picture was ‘commercial confidentiality’.

This is nonsense.

The asking price, what Actual Reality might offer and the agreed price would be commercially confidential until negotiations were concluded. But there is no reason for information on what it is buying to be withheld.

The community is being asked to ‘buy’ a pig in a poke.

It would be ill-advised to accept, in place of hard information, any assurances from either the Council or Actual Reality that they have a care to the wider interest. As texters have it, ‘lol’.

Sheer relief that there is a deal that would see the outdoor and cultural education facility continue should not disguise the fact that the interests of Actual Reality and the interests of the community are not one and the same thing.

Actual Reality is straightforwardly commercial. As it stands, we understand that its business at Castle Toward makes a profit of £300,000 per annum on a turnover of £1 million, seeing 5-6,000 children through the doors each year.

This is a healthy business  performing at a level which calls into question the Council’s judgment in giving them the premises rent free.

Actual Reality will not want to pay for more of the estate than the minimum that will allow it to generate the maximum profit. It will also, as Christopher Mason said, sell every possible aspect of it – including access to walk there. He said that the company would ‘look at’ any way it could offer locals free access but added that there could be difficulties in attempting this that would take some time to explore.

The Council will sell the rest to a developer and admitted that it has had discussions with an interested party or parties. Housing will clearly be all or part of such a development.

What the meeting made no attempt to do and what is centrally necessary, is to form a muscular Community Action Team to monitor developments and to advise the wider community while alternative action is still possible.

The alternatives

There are two:

• that the Council does not sell the property but gives Actual Reality a long lease on it, as it stands. This earns the Council income; gives Actual Reality security to invest and make money; and leaves the property in public hands for better times. This suggestion was put from the floor and received universal applause, making it clear that the weight of public opinion is against sale.
• that the community consider a buy out of the property, taking it into community ownership to develop in the common interest, creating jobs, building enterprise and strengthening the local economy. This could see Actual Reality contracted to deliver its existing services. It was clear from a series of questions from the floor that there is a body of interest in the advantages of this route to the community.

The Council said that it has no use for Castle Toward and that ‘it is in the interests of the Council’ to dispose of it.

Ironically, it has taken a decision to invest the proceeds of the sale of this outdoor education facility in its wider education infrastructure – robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Douglas Hendry said that all councils have been instructed by the Scottish Government to sell assets to augment their investment budgets. Surely they are also expected to exercise some discrimination in so doing?

Dick Walsh said that part of the background to the decision the Council had taken to dispose of the property was an options assessment.

Dr Mason quickly said that Actual Reality would not accept a lease.

Douglas Hendry said that a community buy out could be the best option for the Council. It would, of course, be a single transaction which, leaving the property intact, would be more straightforward and cost effective. There would be  no need for the drawing up of the new titles and maps which would be required if it were to be sold in lots.

Moreover, the focus on the development of a sustainably enterprising  community would be better PR for the Council than selling the property and ramming in ‘development’ against community wishes.

And it might get a better price.

Dr Mason remarked that the community buy out option would ‘do for’ Actual Reality – an excessively dramatic statement since such an outcome would be likely to see the company contracted to continue to provide its services. A community buy out would, though, ‘do for’ Actual Reality’s commercial ambitions which would see the property broken up.

The community’s choice

Dangerously,  the meeting concluded with no decision because there was no suggestion that there was agreement to be reached. This lack of any concrete outcome or pause for specific further action is likely to provide the Council and Actual Reality with every excuse to proceed at pace in their plans before the community wakes up to that risk.

Essentially the Community has two options:

• accept, by default, the done deal and hope it can live with what that actually turns out to be;
• immediately register an interest in a community buy out – which would stall a premature sale, give it time to develop this option and require the Council to act in support if funding was to be secured. (The teamwork involved in such a collective initiative could be generative of better relations and understanding.)

A defining moment

As we said when we reported the Council’s closure of the facility, the Castle Toward situation is a defining moment. This is doubly true: for the Council, in discovering if it can embrace transparency in its procedures; and for the community, in discovering if it has the enterprise and the will to take charge of its future.

It’s a tough ask for both.

On the evidence of the prior manoevres and the conduct at the meeting, there is no trace of will in the Council to operate with the transparency the community demand. Lorna Alquist from Innellan powerfully pointed out that the community would  not trust that the best decision had been taken if the process was not an open one.

Culture change is a slow process but if the Council cannot move from its instinctive Stalinism, Argyll will continue in sullen and alienated stagnation rather than grow in energetic collective response to the challenge of enterprise.

For the community, a buy out is a serious commitment: in working for Big Lottery funding through HIE; and into the future in managing and developing the asset gained. The choice is between independence and continued dependancy.

If the community wants to – and can – summon the spectrum of abilities, energies and commitment in putting together a team to lead and sustain this sort of development, then the community buy out option is in everyone’s best interests. This means hard work.

If it can’t either stomach or deliver this, the best option for the community is to let the Council and Actual Reality go ahead without interruption and make no complaint if it doesn’t like the result. We can’t expect others to look after our interests if we prefer not to look after them ourselves.

As we said, this is a defining moment.

Community feeling on the day

A close reading of audience questions, responses and applause at the meeting showed that there is:

• universal warmth and respect for Peter Wilson who leads the Actual Reality operation;
• loyalty to Actual Reality for its 16 year working presence at Castle Toward;
• all but universal opposition to the sale of the property;
• a 50/50 division between those wanting to see Actual Reality somehow get what it wants because it deserves it; and those whose gut feeling is that it would wise to hold back and maintain a watching brief until the facts of the situation are known;
• an interest, probably at no more than the theoretical level at the moment, in the community buy out option.

Questionable legalities

There are two immediate areas of concern. One is the role of the Castle Toward Trust, which has two Directors in common with Actual Reality, including Christopher Mason. The other is the current conduct of Actual Reality, which, in open view on Saturday, is prepared to act outside its current legal authority.

• Castle Toward Trust

Here are some relevant paragraphs from Glasgow City Council’s Financial Statement to the end of March 2001.

‘Argyll and Bute Council, East Renfrewshire Council and Glasgow City Council originally entered into a joint venture to operate three educational outdoor centres at Ardentinny, Castle Toward and Achnamara.  During 2000/01 the outdoor centre at Achnamara was sold.  In 2000/01, the Council did not make a contribution to the Trust, but remained liable to meet any losses up to the value of £50,000′.

‘At a meeting of the board of Castle Trust on 18 May 2001 it was agreed to voluntarily strike off and wind up the company.  It is proposed to transfer all residual funds to a new independent trust with similar purposes’.

As we understand it, this ‘new independent trust with similar purposes’ was the Castle Toward Trust, the second of the trusts with which the Joint Management Committee (JMC) of the three named councils dealt, in the management of their outdoor education facilities.

The JMC itself was dissolved. Local authority rearrangements saw Castle Toward pass into the hands of Argyll & Bute Council. Castle Toward Trust continued responsibility for delivering management of the two remaining centres – at Ardentinny and Castle Toward. Actual Reality was already contracted to deliver the operation of both centres and this arrangement carried on. (Actual Reality was a company formed from staff at Ardentinny and Castle Toward specifically to deliver this service.)

We have been unable to find, in research and questioning, any evidence of a change to the Castle Toward Trust’s given responsibilities. We have therefore questioned why Argyll and Bute Council has been negotiating directly with Actual Reality and not with its principal, Castle Toward Trust, which we understand to be the responsible body.

At Saturday’s meeting we asked for information on the current status of Castle Toward Trust, if it no longer had the responsibility of delivering management and, if this were the case, why and when this had changed.

We were given no real answer other than some muddled fudging from Christopher Mason who:

• first said that this was wrong, that the Castle Toward Trust had never ‘run’ the facility – which was not, of course, what we had said. Being responsible for delivering management is not the same as undertaking actual operations;
• then confusedly tried to lay the blame – for something unspecified – on Glasgow City Council;
• and finally said that the Trust is no more than a fund raiser for the facility.

This does not square with his own company’s public statements. Until very recently, Actual Reality’s website said that the company operates Castle Toward for the Castle Toward Trust. While it no longer says this, the About Actual Reality Page says: ‘The trust provides governance (our emphasis), investment in facilities and has a long-term commitment to ensuring that the centres continue to serve customers in the best traditions of adventurous outdoor learning’.

‘Governance’ is well beyond a mere fund raising function.

The Castle Toward Trust website is not functioning, so this side of the narrative breaks down. It has only one accessible and homespun page devoted to a list of the fund raising activities of the Friends of Castle Toward, whose legal and constitutional position and formal relationship to the Trust are not specified.

It may well be that the Castle Toward Trust never was, or is no longer, responsible for management of the Ardentinny and Castle Toward centres.

It is disturbing though, that those who should have been able to offer unequivocal reassurance and proof of this, were unable to do so – and Actual Reality’s attribution to the Trust of ‘governance’, suggests differently.

• Reserved Water Rights

This was an issue which arose at the meeting and which gave rise to the improper assumption of authority referred to at the start of this section.

The concerns of a local resident – on what would happen to her water supply in the event of sale and development at Castle Toward – were raised on her behalf by Liz Carey of South Cowal Community Council.

A clearly rattled Christopher Mason muttered that ‘water is a problem’ and immediately asked anyone with concerns as to their water rights on or from the Castle Toward property to arrange to come and talk to him.

There are two issues here:

• Dr Mason was acting outside his legal authority here. Actual Reality is not yet the owner of the property. It would be entirely improper for it to have discussions, offer advice or enter any form of negotiation on this or any other issue of title with potentially affected local residents.
• Extant water rights are indeed reserved in the original deed of sale of the property to City of Glasgow Corporation – as we detail below.

The only correct and safe procedure for local residents whose water supplies might be affected by developments at Castle Toward is to act together, get legal representation and consult the owners of the property, Argyll & Bute Council.

This – and reserved access rights, also detailed below, are key matters which will impact both on the disposal of the property and on what purchasers can and cannot do after the event.

Key issues in the original deed of sale

Several questions from the floor related to the terms of the original deed of sale of the property.

From Mason’s reaction to the question on water rights, he is clearly aware of these terms and it is inconceivable that the Council are not.

Neither the Council or Actual Reality felt it helpful to their interests to make these facts known to the meeting and their answers to questions relating to this were vague and inaccurate.

For Argyll spent an afternoon earlier last week at Council HQ at Kilmory, studying the entire deed and making written copy of much of its content.

There are key issues which need to be in the public domain if debate is to properly informed. We have already published much of this but include it here as it is clearly germane.

The deed of sale was concluded in 1949 between ‘the Factors and Commissioners of Mrs Isabella Alice Lyon or Coats’ and ‘City of Glasgow Corporation as Education Authority for the Burgh of Glasgow for the purposes of Education Scotland Acts 1872-1946′.

The agreement was to ‘sell and dispone in favour of the said The Corporation of the City of Glasgow, as Education Authority foresaid and their successors and assignees whomsoever heritably and irredeemably’.

The deed assumes that the property may be sold on or transferred in ownership and lays no conditions on such sales or transfers.

In written answer to a question from us, following our study of the deed of sale, the Council has said that, to the best of its knowledge, no conditions were added to any later documents produced as the property travelled on its route from City of Glasgow Corporation to the eventual ownership of Argyll & Bute Council.

We read the above cluster of facts as offering no impediment to Argyll & Bute Council’s wish to sell the property and without prior conditions attached – unless it should wish to add any. (When a question was raised from the floor on the advisability of adding conditions of sale, Christopher Mason reasonably said that Actual Reality wants an unencumbered title as this is the most secure basis for borrowing.)

• The original sale price of the property was £24,000, which, at the end of the 1940′s, does not seem to infer anything other than a straightforward commercial transaction. This amount does not carry any apparent discount, as one would expect of a sale with philanthropic intent.
• The deed of sale includes all fishing, shooting and sporting rights associated with the property. These have a value distinct from the value of the property.
• Water rights are included in the sale, but rights are reserved for continued access and use by those traditionally dependent on such sources. They are to be assured of  ‘an adequate supply’. These rights also have a value.
• Foreshore rights, a jetty and a pier are included as part of the original sale. As with the fishing, shooting and sporting rights, these too have a development value any sale price would need to encompass.
• Specific access rights to roads and ways existing at the time of sale are reserved to the vendor and, presumably to her inheritors,

It is clear that their are encumbrances upon the estate – in water and access rights – that any buyer with development in mind would need to address; and that anyone in possession of such rights would need to be aware of and either protect or relinquish.

Moreover there are substantial additional rights attached to the estate – foreshore, fishing, shooting and sporting rights – which would need to be taken into proper account in any sale price offered or agreed; or in the break up of the property into lots.

These are real and serious issues that should be openly aired and widely discussed.

The immediate future

The Council and Actual Reality agreed at their meeting on 22nd January, which Christopher Mason referred to as ‘The Treaty of Kilmory’, that:

• An agreed programme of works will be undertaken by Actual Reality under the charge of one of its Directors, architect Gordon Gibb, working with Craig Houston of Argyll & Bute Council.
• An agreed programme of staff training and development will be undertaken by Actual Reality, led by Peter Wilson.
• The aim is to reopen the centre on 1st March.

Christopher Mason assured the meeting that:

• The works will be completed in February.
• There is nothing to stand in the way of a reopening on 1st March.

A question from the floor raised the issue of risk to Actual Reality in bearing the cost of these works with no guarantee that it would be the end purchaser.

In the nudge-nudge hints that followed, one was left with the assumption that Actual Reality would not be at risk in this.

Christopher Mason declared theatrically that Actual Reality was happy to take the risk and that it would not want to use its risk raking as any moral hold over Argyll & Bute Council in its own entirely proper and objective conduct of the sale.

The subtext is ‘done deal’ but the specific nature of the deal remains closed to the community.

The moment of decision

The afternoon belonged to Alan Reid, Argyll’s MP. When it was his turn to speak from the platform at the start of the session, he asked a question which immediately cut through the self-and-mutually congratulatory tenour of the contributions from the Council and Actual Reality.

He noted that everything was fine with Actual Reality now but what were the long term guarantees that, once it had bought what it wanted, it would not substantially change its activities or sell off all or part of what it had bought?

This brought the platform party up short and it awakened an audience which had become anaesthetised by the blend of Soviet style imperatives and self-regarding egocentrism that had emanated from the principals in the action.

The community and the campaigners have to look at a post-Peter Wilson scenario; and they have to look at a situation, as yet centrally unknown but which would see the property broken up, developed and beyond public or community ownership.

So, to the residents of Cowal and the worldwide Facebook campaigners:

• If you’re satisfied with what you’ve got out of this process, say so and let it proceed without delay. You’ll get a continuation of a cultural and adventure facility; you’ll see investment in it; and you’ll see investment in other areas of the Council’s education infrastructure.
• If this is not what you want, get moving and get organised. Time is not on your side and you have a lot to do.