The city council spent, and wrote off, more money on the Bristol Beacon revamp than on all its transport schemes combined last year, including flood defences, traffic infrastructure, street lighting, road maintenance, car park buildings and the forthcoming Clean Air Zone. Its annual accounts show the authority has now written off £69 million refurbishing the city centre concert hall, including £30.3 million in 2021/22 to add to the previous running total of £39 million.
And that figure is expected to soar even further to £93 million next year because the financial documents include an unpaid commitment of £23.3 million to the main contractor Willmott Dixon. The amount ploughed into the project dwarfed every other “major area of investment” apart from the council’s own housing stock, according to the accounts, and has led to accusations that the organisation has got its priorities "seriously wrong".
In response, Bristol City Council says about £47.4 million of the amount being spent on Bristol Beacon has come from grant funding and external donations, including the Government, West of England Combined Authority (Weca), the Arts Council and Heritage Lottery Fund. It says the “vast majority” of the £2 billion in its 10-year capital investment programme is dedicated to housing.
