Subject: RE: Escalation — Llandough ward member silence: Great House Farm / Church View Close and removal of commemorative tree
From: Davidson, Victoria
Direction: received
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:01 UTC
Institution: Vale of Glamorgan Council
Refs: none
Archive id: gm-1a0b4d2ccd7bfc79
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Dear Mr Buckler
Thank you for your recent correspondence which I am responding to on behalf of the Leader, concerning Great House Farm/Church View Close, the removal of a commemorative tree and your communications with Councillor Carroll.
I have considered the matters you have raised.
As you are aware, I have previously responded to your concerns regarding Councillor Carroll's lack of response to your correspondence. Having reviewed those concerns, I concluded that the matter did not fall within the Council's Corporate Complaints Policy and I did not identify any basis for further action under the Members' Code of Conduct process. The Council has no mechanism by which it can compel an elected member to respond to correspondence from a constituent and, accordingly, the Council's consideration of that aspect of the matter is concluded.
Please note that the Leader is not responsible for the conduct of Members other than those with her own political group
I note that your recent correspondence extends beyond the issue of Councillor Carroll's responsiveness and raises a broader range of concerns relating to historical land ownership, planning and heritage matters associated with Great House Farm/Church View Close, together with a request for information regarding the removal of a commemorative tree.
In relation to the tree, I am making enquiries to establish whether the Council holds any records which may assist in answering your question regarding its removal. This is being dealt with by the Information Governance Team, I have copied in the FOI unit email domain. If relevant information is held by the Council, I will advise you accordingly. Equally, if no such records are held, I will confirm that position.
In respect of the wider matters raised in your correspondence, it is important that I clarify the scope of the Council's role. The Council is not able to determine disputed ownership of land, revisit historical legal proceedings, adjudicate upon competing title claims, or investigate allegations of fraud or other criminal conduct. Those matters fall within the jurisdiction of the courts, HM Land Registry, the police and other external bodies as appropriate.
Whilst I appreciate the strength of feeling reflected in your correspondence and recognise the significance that these matters have for you and your family, the Council must limit its involvement to those issues which fall within its statutory functions and responsibilities. Any response provided by the Council will therefore be confined to matters upon which it may properly comment and any information which it may hold.
The FOI team will write to you further once enquiries regarding the tree have been completed.
Yours sincerely,


Victoria Davidson
Monitoring Officer/Head of Legal and Democratic Services / Swyddog Monitro / Pennaeth Gwasanaethau Cyfreithiol a Democrataidd
Director's Office - Resources / Swyddfa’r Cyfarwyddwr - Adnoddau
Vale of Glamorgan Council / Cyngor Bro Morgannwg
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From: Sion Buckler <[email redacted]>
Sent: 10 September 2026 15:23
To: Burnett, Lis (Cllr) <[email redacted]>; Leader <[email redacted]>
Cc: Carroll, George D (Cllr) <[email redacted]>; Democratic <[email redacted]>; Davidson, Victoria <[email redacted]>
Subject: Escalation — Llandough ward member silence: Great House Farm / Church View Close and removal of commemorative tree

Councillor Burnett,

I write to you as Leader of the Vale of Glamorgan Council because the elected member for Llandough, Councillor George D. D. Carroll, has not answered a sequence of written enquiries spanning more than six months. I am going above him for that reason alone. I am not asking you to adjudicate the historic title dispute. I am asking that a constituent with a documented family interest in the ward receive a reply that the ward member has declined to give.

I understand that elected members do not have a line manager in the employment sense. Councillor Carroll is Leader of the Conservative Group. You are the political head of the authority. After the ward member and the Monitoring Officer, you are the proper next addressee.

Why I am writing to you rather than waiting further

1. Councillor Carroll has not sent a single substantive reply to me at [email redacted]<[email redacted]>.
2. On 27 July 2026 I filed a formal complaint about that silence (copied to him, Democratic Services and the Monitoring Officer).
3. On 12 August 2026 Victoria Davidson, Monitoring Officer, wrote that the matter fell outside the Corporate Concerns and Complaints Policy and that she had not identified a Code of Conduct breach. That determination did not require him to respond. It left the original questions unanswered.
4. I followed up with the Monitoring Officer on 12 August, 21 August and 24 August 2026. The position did not change.
5. I copied Councillor Carroll again on 28 August 2026 (joint letter with Stephen Doughty MP). Still no reply from him.

The questions he has not answered include a simple, current, ward-level one: who removed the tree my great-grandfather planted to mark the family’s claim, as recorded in the Collection of Wales / archival image. That is a local enquiry a ward member can signpost to Parks, Highways, Planning or the landowner. It is not a request that he retry BP Properties Ltd v Buckler.

From his public output, Councillor Carroll appears to concentrate on blocked drains, potholes and similar highway defects. Those matters matter. The correspondence I sent him is of a different character: heritage, planning and enforcement records, the 1988 demolition of Great House Farm (Ty Mawr), now Church View Close, and the removal of a commemorative tree. I accept that may be outside the type of casework he usually handles. That is why a short, honest reply — even if only to say the questions sit with named officers, and to pass the tree query to the correct department — would have been sufficient. Silence is not.

Recorded approaches to Councillor Carroll ([email redacted]<[email redacted]>)

All sent. No substantive reply on any of them.

- 16 February 2026 — “Title Fraud and Procedural Concealment – Church View Close, Llandough (formerly Great House Farm / Ty Mawr)”. Planning and record-keeping gaps; 1988 demolition.
- 4 May 2026 — follow-up on BP v Buckler 1987; ITV footage; request for attention as Llandough councillor.
- 3 May 2026 — joined the public “George Carroll for Llandough” Facebook group (approved). Not a substitute for a council-email reply.
- 9 May 2026 — a wider formal notice also addressed to [email redacted]<[email redacted]>. That address bounced. Subsequent mail used the correct gdcarroll@ address.
- 7 June 2026 — “Church View Close, Llandough”. 1988 events from public records, family testimony and media.
- 25 June 2026 — “Great House Farm, Llandough”. Asked whether he had reviewed the earlier concerns and whether any discussion was possible.
- 13 July 2026 — “Great House Farm / Church View Close”. Full timeline restated. Ten-working-day request. Explicit question: who removed the tree my great-grandfather planted to commemorate the ownership claim, as shown in the Collection of Wales archive image.
- 27 July 2026 — formal complaint to [email redacted]<[email redacted]>, copied to Councillor Carroll, Democratic Services and the Monitoring Officer.
- 28 August 2026 — further letter to Councillor Carroll and Stephen Doughty MP on the same site.

What I am asking you to do

1. Note that the ward member has not answered, and that the complaint process produced no requirement that he do so.

2. Ask Councillor Carroll, or the relevant Director, to provide a short written reply on the tree: which department or landowner authorised or carried out its removal, on what date, and under what power or works order — or to confirm that the Council holds no such record.

3. Identify the correct officer contact for heritage, trees and historic planning records at Church View Close / former Great House Farm, so I am not left circling a silent ward inbox.

4. Confirm whether the Council will treat a documented family connection to a demolished historic farmstead in the ward as a legitimate basis for a reply, even where the correspondent is not presently resident in Llandough.

The thesis of my concern is that the lawfare/ warfare that systematically attempted to make our occupancy permissive as early as the 40's (with my grandmothers statement of title being stolen, a failed attempt to get us into a tenancy afterwards, and ambiguity in a 1955 order for another parcel we leased and defaulted on, which later meant it was able to be misinterpreted to make it appear our parcel of land (now Church View Close) was part of theirs, like it was in 1916 - 1928) is a racket. The ownership dispute was a problem created. The reaction followed and the solution was to focus on possession. And so in 1987 BP were awarded possession with what was a defective title chain.

I do not expect you to reopen 1987 litigation. I do expect the authority, once the ward member has been given months and a formal complaint, to answer a factual question about a tree on land in that ward. Because that tree was part of a long list of evidence supporting our ownership claim.

I can supply the original emails and the 27 July complaint in full if Democratic Services does not already have them. See attached the aforementioned tree planting ceremy image. I also enclose a draft chancery court allocation so you can understand the legal arguments.

Due to a lot of suspicious and conveniently timed deaths in our family, surrounding this case, like my grandmother dying in the 2 weeks she will have had to challenge BP quietly registering our land parcel in their names in 1983, without declaring our ownership claim, which was never exstinguished as the first 1974 court case was ajourned. Or my fathers death after his appeal of the 1987 ruling was dismissed on grounds of "heads BP win, tails we lose". Followed by ECHR rejection citing BP own the land, despite BP only seeking possession and never seeking or gaining ownership.

I have a trove of evidence and I am collecting more and investigating and in talks with CPS and Fraud Police and MoJ and Land Registry. The initial thing I would like from you is the record of the removal of the tree we planted. The picture attached depicts its location. I'd like to know who removed it and when it was removed?

Regards,

Sion Hywel Buckler (Ret'd Sergeant)
Royal Signals Cyber/ Electronic Warfare Professional and Life Member
[address redacted], Dinas Powys, [postcode redacted]

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