Lagoon bid chief exec accused of inaccuracy
THE chief executive of the company behind plans for a tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay has been accused of failing to provide “accurate information” to MPs.
Grilled by MPs earlier this month, Mark Shorrock, of Tidal Lagoon Power, denied that one of his companies had offered “financial inducement” to a parish council so it would support planning permission for a Cornish quarry project.
A draft agreement then surfaced between Shire Oak Quarries and St Keverne Parish Council which suggested the company would create a “community benefit fund”.
He was then asked by the chairs of the Welsh Affairs and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) committees to provide “urgent clarification”.
Mr Shorrock said the questions he was asked when appearing before the two committees “implied wrongdoing and an alleged improper payment by either myself or the company in question”.
Denying such an allegation, he said: “It was and remains my belief that these questions were put to me, and put to me in this way, as a result of the activity of a group of people who have for a long period of time attempted to smear my reputation and attack the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project.”
He added he accepted the “questions may have left scope for misinterpretation, wilful or otherwise, of the answers given, for which I apologise”.
Welsh Affairs chair and Monmouth Conservative MP David Davies and Labour Beis chair Rachel Reeves stated that they are “not convinced” by Mr Shorrock’s response, saying that his “apology relates to scope for misinterpretation of our questions rather than the inaccuracy of your own answers”.
They add: “You agree that Shire Oak Quarries Ltd (SOQ) offered in a draft agreement with St Keverne Parish Council the establishment of a community fund and that the council would provide ‘reasonable support’ to any future planning by your company pertaining to Dean Quarry. It is difficult to regard this as anything other than a financial inducement...
“Given that you found ‘no ambiguity’ in the questions put to you, it is unfortunate that, instead of taking the opportunity to put the record straight in relation to the accusations, of which you were clearly aware, you chose to twice deny that there was any financial inducement offered... We deeply regret that you failed to provide accurate information to our committees during the evidence session and trust that in future you will provide transparent and accurate responses to legitimate questions in order to facilitate a decision on the project, which we hope will be made shortly.”
Keith Clarke, chairman of Tidal Lagoon (Swansea Bay), said that Dean Quarry in Cornwall, which had been widely seen as a potential supplier of rock for the energy project, did not meet qualifying criteria.
He said: “Dean Quarry has been considered by the board and measures put in place to ensure no real or apparent conflict of interest nor preferential treatment could occur when our project proceeds to procurement.
“Moreover, Dean Quarry does not fulfil our criteria for volume and logistics that would qualify it as a suitable supplier.”