Welsh taxpayers own ‘the most expensive bird nest in history’

A pair of nesting ospreys has cost Welsh taxpayers £500,000 after forcing the abandonment of a government-backed festival site.

The Welsh government bought Gilestone Farm in Powys for £4.25million in 2024 to lease to Green Man festival organisers. But when ospreys established a nest on the land, wildlife laws imposed a 750-metre exclusion zone, making the plan unworkable.

The farm is now valued at £3.75m – a loss of half a million pounds.

A Senedd committee report condemned the purchase as rushed and poorly assessed. It accused officials of pushing it through to spend unallocated funds before year-end. Evidence of protected species was known at the time but not properly factored into risk assessments.

Welsh wildfowler and Shooting Times contributor Gethin Jones called the affair a sign of “woeful” ecological and financial understanding: “The only winners are the ospreys.”

While the birds are now a conservation success story, Conservative MS James Evans labelled Gilestone “the most expensive publicly owned bird nest in history”.

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