Secret of £100,000 sunk like a stone (From Western Telegraph)

Secret of £100,000 sunk like a stone

THE SECRECY over how the £100,000 Pembrokeshire Bluestone project was funded could be lifted this week.

Demands for a full report on the ill-fated project will be put to Pembrokeshire County Council tomorrow (Thursday) by Milford Haven Councillor Terry Mills.

He is calling for full details on the project's expenditure, including staff costs and funding received from the National Lottery Heritage Board.

'The people of Pembrokeshire deserve to know what public monies (especially council taxpayers' monies) have been expended on this project, what the projected outcomes of the project were, whether they were achieved and what proposals exist for the stone,' he says.

The council is under growing pressure to explain the continuing mystery of how the attempt to transport a three-tonne stone to Stonehenge was funded.

Although the Heritage Board awarded a £100,000 grant to the now wound-up Menter Preseli, they have since confirmed that not a penny has been drawn down by the project.

Pembrokeshire County Council say taxpayers' money was not used to fund the project either.

Preseli Pembrokeshire MP Jackie Lawrence said: 'I think there are huge questions that have to be answered.'When was the decision to carry out this project taken, who took it, and where did the money come from? Nobody seems to be willing to say.'

A council spokeswoman said it would be inappropriate to comment before the meeting.

An alternative use for the bluestone has been put forward by the 'Cymdeithas Clychau Clochog', led by BBC broadcaster Hefin Wyn.

They have asked the council's chief executive, Bryn Parry-Jones, if they can use it as a permanent memorial to the local comedian Dilwyn Edwards

'We were wondering, if you have no further use to the bluestone, would you be prepared to return her to her proper home on the Preseli slopes?' they said.

Meanwhile, the bluestone is currently languishing at Milford Docks after being recovered when it sank on the seaward leg of its journey to Stonehenge.