A Plaid Cymru Senedd Member has branded comments made by the boss of Green Man Festival as “naive, misguided and misjudged” amid the ongoing Gilestone Farm saga.

Last week, managing director and owner of Green Man Fiona Stewart said she was “surprised” by some of the reaction to the deal which has seen the Welsh Government spend £4.25m on the farm for the business.

Ms Stewart said: “I am surprised, some of the things that have been said, I didn’t quite understand there would be a reaction in that way - especially because we have been around for such a long time.

“We have been in Powys for 20 years, and there is quite a lot of popular support for the event around here.

“There was an extensive vision document submitted which was massive, so that portrayed lots of the targets and what we would want to do, and how we were going to do things.”

In May it was confirmed that the Government had bought Gilestone Farm in Talybont-on-Usk, some seven miles from the festival’s site at Glanusk Estate.

It later emerged that Climate Change Minister Julie James and Education Minister Jeremy Miles had met with the owner of the Green Man festival at the home of her lobbyist Cathy Owens.

Earlier this month a government report said the meeting in May between the ministers, festival owner Fiona Stewart and lobbyist was a purely social occasion and did not include a discussion about the purchase of Gilestone Farm.

Plaid Cymru’s Rural Affairs spokesperson Mabon ap Gwynfor MS said: “Fiona Stewart’s comments are naive, misguided and misjudged.

“No other event or organisation has been awarded this kind of special treatment by the Labour Government where they are permitted to draft a business case in retrospect after receiving public money from government.

“The facts remain that a furtive meeting was held between government ministers and the owner of the Green Man Festival who was at that time in the middle of drawing up a business plan to justify government spending on her business, at the home of the Green Man Festival’s lobbyist, who happened to also be a former Government special advisor.”

Jeremy Miles denied the social gathering was a misjudgement and said: “I wouldn’t expect as education minister to have any role in the decision making around a farm in any case, but should that arise in the future, then as you will have seen from the first minister’s statement, both myself and the minister for climate change will not take part in it.”

Ms ap Gwynfor called Mr Miles’ comments “misplaced” and said: “He and his fellow Minister, Julie James, demonstrated extremely poor judgement and left themselves in a compromising position. Governments make decisions by collective responsibility, the fact that they had no direct ministerial or portfolio involvement is not defence.”

The Plaid MS added: “This episode casts serious doubt on the inner workings of the Welsh Government and its attitude to transparency.

“Without a significant tightening of the rules Ministers will continue to have carte blanche to meet who they like when they like without anyone knowing about it.

“We urgently need a register of lobbyists in Wales and much greater and clearer transparency on the nature of lobbying in Wales.”