A council paid £1 million to the private owners of a shopping centre to subsidise lost rent from empty units over a period two years. Figures obtained by WalesOnline following a Freedom of Information request show the council paid the money to Canadian company Talisker Corporation as part of a 15-year deal agreed when the Friars Walk was sold back in 2017.
Opened in November 2015, the £90 million Friars Walk was seen by many as the driving force in regenerating Newport city centre. Following the sale of the centre to Talisker Corporation in 2017, Newport City Council entered an investment subsidy agreement to pay the company up to £500,000 per year until 2032, which it said would "effectively guarantee the level of net rental required to secure the full purchase price and the bank funding" to the buyer of the centre.
In a council cabinet report at the time the council said that "in reality, the subsidy is only intended to cover any rental shortfall for the first few years of trading". However, seven years on from the opening, figures show the council paid £500,000 to Talisker in both 2020 and 2021 - the maximum allowed for in the agreement and a total of £1 million in public money - to make up the shortfall in rent from empty units.
