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.
Read more: Auditors criticise city council over escalating Bristol Beacon costs
Earlier this summer, external auditors criticised the authority after the building’s renovation costs more than doubled to £107million, which came weeks after it was revealed the venue was valued at zero pounds in the 2020/21 accounts. The latest year’s draft statement of accounts, which cover transactions from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, give a list of the biggest areas of spend, with housing topping the list at £39.4 million, including £21 million building new homes.
A total of £30.3 million on Bristol Beacon was second, ahead of £24.9 million invested in transport schemes as the third highest. These included electric charge points, flood defences, car park buildings, CAZ, Bus Deal programme, traffic infrastructure, street lighting, highways maintenance and Streetspace improvements, which are the cycling and walking lanes made permanent after being introduced temporarily during the pandemic to help social distancing.
Fourth in the list of areas of investment was £17.7 million on school buildings for more pupils, including the special education needs and disabilities (SEND) expansion programme, and then £17.6 million on energy renewables and the Temple and Bedminster heat networks. Further down the list, the council contributed £4.7 million to flood defences and ecological infrastructure in the Avonmouth and Severnside Enterprise Area in partnership with South Gloucestershire Council and the Environment Agency, which is in addition to flood defence schemes included under transport initiatives.
The amount spent on the Bristol Beacon was more than eight times the £3.6 million on waste depots and 10 times the £3.1 million for housing adaptations. Answering questions from Conservative Cllr Jonathan Hucker about the issue at a recent meeting of the audit committee, city council finance officers confirmed the £30.3 million spent on the music venue in 2021/22 had been written off – or “fully impaired”, which effectively means the money will not be recovered – taking that overall amount now to about £69 million.
Speaking after the meeting, Stockwood ward Cllr Hucker said: “The spend of £30.3 million on the Bristol Beacon in the year is considerably more than the combined spend on transport schemes including flood defences, traffic infrastructure, street lighting and highways maintenance. I don’t think the council has got its priorities right. In fact it has got them seriously wrong.
“The accounts indicate that as at March 31, 2022, there is a capital commitment of £23.3 million with Willmott Dixon Construction Ltd in respect of the Bristol Beacon. When this expenditure is incurred it will also be written off, bringing the total write-off on the project to about £93 million, with more to come.”
A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “There are significant sums of grant funding that make up our 10-year capital investment programme. Grant funding also forms large parts of the Bristol Beacon redevelopment.
“We estimate a total of £47.4 million has come from various grant funding sources and donations external to the council. These sources include national Government, Weca, Arts Council, Heritage Lottery Fund as well as other trusts and funds too.
“Our capital investment programme commits nearly £2 billion of spending over the next decade for the city. The vast majority of this money is dedicated to building new council housing, investing in developing new affordable housing schemes and refurbishing our current stock of council housing to improve energy efficiency and safety for almost 33,000 tenants.
“In addition to providing much-needed housing, this capital spending will be invested directly into the fabric of the city as we aim to improve current highways infrastructure and deliver the largest regeneration scheme in the South West at Temple Quarter. The net value of the investment in the Temple Quarter regeneration alone will see billions of pounds unlocked for the local economy that includes new jobs and homes.”
As previously reported, Bristol Beacon is valued at zero in the accounts because it is of no economic value to the council, as it leases the venue to Bristol Music Trust at a 40-year peppercorn rent – effectively nil – and restrictive covenants prevent it being used for more money-making purposes. The authority has previously insisted that its worth goes “well beyond the bricks and mortar” with the wider economic stimulus it provides to the city which will “ultimately dwarf” the repair costs, as well as its cultural value.
In June, auditors Grant Thornton criticised the council for having “underestimated the complexity and difficulty” of the project and that its “failure” to have effective arrangements in place caused the bill to spiral from £52 million to £107 million.
Read next:
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