Partner company removed from £200m Wellbeing Village scheme
ACOMPANY chosen through an EU tender process as the development partner for the proposed £200m Life Sciences and Wellbeing Village in Llanelli has been removed from the project.
Carmarthenshire Council said that Sterling Health Securities Holdings is no longer part of the project, which is seeking £40m in funding from the £1.3bn City Deal for the Swansea Bay City Region.
The council, which is driving the project, said it has concluded that the scheme can be delivered in a better way under a new model without Sterling Health.
It comes after the local authority’s executive board earlier this week confirmed that a detailed business plan for the project, while agreed in principle, will now be subject to an external independent legal review to provide members of the public and stakeholders with reassurance that all due legal process has been properly followed.
It said it is currently taking legal advice as to who would carry out the review.
Council leader Emlyn Dole last week said that assurances were needed “given the ongoing internal investigation at Swansea University,” which has seen four academics suspended including its Vice-Chancellor Richard B Davies and dean of its management school Professor Marc Clement.
Prof Clement is credited as being the architect of the project, that was previously known as the Life Sciences and Wellness Village.
The project, which promises to create 2,000 jobs, is a joint collaboration between the council, Swansea University, the University of Wales Trinity St David and Hywel Dda and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg university health boards.
And last Thursday, the UK and Welsh governments issued a joint statement confirming they had commissioned an independent review of the entire City Deal for the region.
The City Deal has identified 11 projects. However, they will all individually need UK and Welsh government approval before any money is released. They will also have to demonstrate they have secured private sector match-funding.
On the decision to remove Sterling Health from the project, Mr Dole said: “The collaboration agreement [with Sterling Health] was simply an agreement to work together to develop the various aspects of the Delta Lakes project and draw up a development agreement for its delivery. That development agreement has not been agreed and the county council has concluded that the project can be better delivered in another way.
“No public funding has been committed to the partners, no companies have been established, no shares allocated and no directors appointed. There is no liability on the county council whatsoever at this point.”
The council wouldn’t say how much it has spent on the Wellbeing Village to date.
Its chief executive Mark James added: “The council and its partners remain fully committed to develop the Life Science and Wellbeing Village.
“The council will now finalise the business plan to develop the Village with key partners including the Hywel Dda Health Board and the two universities [Swansea and Trinity St David].”
Prof Clement is a former director of Kent Neurosciences, but resigned in August 2015, before the company entered into a 10-month exclusivity deal with Carmarthenshire Council to be the Wellbeing Village’s development partner back 2016.
Kent Neurosciences was dissolved early this year.
In an EU procurement tender exercise, for which there was only one bidder, the contract was awarded to a newly-created company in Sterling Health.
Directors of Sterling Health include Franz Dickmann, a former director of the now-dissolved Kent Neurosciences.
Former Carmarthenshire councillor Meryl Gravell was appointed a director of the company in July this year, before resigning last month.
The Wellbeing Village project includes plans for an Institute of Life Science, Community Health Hub, Wellness Education Centre, Clinical Delivery Centre and new leisure centre. It would also see assisted living accommodation, a nursing home, business space and wellness hotel.
Preparatory site work is under way and continuing, and a planning application for the scheme has been submitted.