Having been alerted to the fact that some significant sums of money have passed through Gerwyn Williams companies quite quickly recently (I hope the taxman is watching him!), I thought I had better check on what he is up to. All his test drilling sites are being monitored regularly and there is negligible evidence of anything going on at them, but what of his luxury retirement home?

New hospital on the right. Bus station on the left.

As previously reported, progress has been painfully slow this year, but having popped down there today, there is evidence of activity that would probably equate to the sums of money passing through his company accounts. For a start the lift installers were on site today, and one of them commented that it is the biggest lift they have ever installed in a residential property. You can gauge this from the installation on the roof. Secondly, there is a sizeable indoor pool being installed in the ground floor. Thirdly, the workman on the scaffold is fitting the white polystyrene insulation to the outside of the building jutting features, and the more expensive kingspan insulation to the external walls of the rooms.

“Darling, the QE2 has docked in next door’s garden!”

This suggests that the finishing cladding will follow quite quickly – and let’s hope he’s ordered something attractive to help reduce the visual impact of this municipal-looking edifice. It has gone through its ‘car-park’ and ‘shopping mall’ phases and now resembles a hospital. What the next-door neighbours must think, with this the only thing between them and the beach, is anyone’s guess, because, it has to be said, that the views are truly magnificent.

Newton beach, with sun carressing Nash Point on the right.

Gerwyn’s place in background to the right

So, it is easy to see what the six-figure sum could have been spent on, and it would still leave much more needed. For example, I wonder if Gerwyn is going to have to protect this hugely expensive asset with flood defence measures. The sea wall has recently been upgraded, but that has obviously not been enough to satisfy one of Gerwyn’s near neighbours.  They have gone to the significant cost and trouble of having flood barriers installed on their property. They are designed to be erected quickly when a flood alert is issued, but they either know something I don’t about the risk today, or are simply not taking any chances and leaving part of it up all the time.

Wouldn’t that be ironic though? The filthy frackers tip us over the edge of disastrous climate change, and one of ‘their own’ sees his dreams washed away as the seas rise and the storms gather. Poetic.