Millions in cost to the taxpayer for the Brabazon arena
Updated: 18 January 2022 to add the £32m funding for cleaning the L&G site; this was money from the South West LEP that was to be used as a…
Updated: 18 January 2022 to add the £32m funding for cleaning the L&G site; this was money from the South West LEP that was to be used as a grant towards the Temple Island Arena.
The mayor is campaigning on a platform of “no cost to the taxpayer” for the YTL arena in Filton. However, this claim does not reflect reality.
Bristol taxpayers have already paid millions for YTL’s arena. We will continue to pay millions for years to come.
Let me list all the associated costs that I know of so far. They are not exhaustive and the £216.5m I have established is not the final cost.
YTL planning permission for Filton Arena
For YTL to get planning permission in Filton, Bristol City Council officers had to solve a conundrum. The Temple Island site could not be available for use because of what is called in planning, the sequential test. The government recognises that out-of-town sites are a detriment to city centres. They, therefore, ensure that city developments happen as close as possible to the city centre.
The Bristol Arena had to be cancelled so that there was a case for the YTL arena.
The cancellation of the Bristol Arena, however, made the site available, which meant the YTL planning was at risk.
If the Temple Island site had been available, there was a strong chance the YTL planning application would have failed. For further details, see One Man, Two Plans and Approval Guaranteed.
The solution was to offer up L&G’s plan for a mixed-use office and housing space at Temple Island and that cabinet decision had to happen before YTL applied for theirs. It happened in February 2020 and YTL got their approval just a few weeks later.
And here’s where the millions of cost to the taxpayer come in.
£4.5m for the YTL arena and L&G
Work at the Brabazon Arena, legal advice for Temple Island, copywriting work, Value for Money reports, more legal advice, procurement advice and exploratory work have all cost the taxpayer at least £4.5m.
£12m for the cancelled Bristol Arena
The Bristol Arena was a “shovel ready project” with a bridge built, land bought, etc. Once the project was cancelled, the public cost became £12m for capital work already completed.
£200m for infrastructure that supports the YTL arena
In 2019, Bristol24/7 reported that that transport options from the city centre to the Filton site would include a new train station due to open in 2021 and a new metrobus service. Those infrastructure additions are part of a whole host of items that WECA has costed at £200m of public money. The excellent investigative work by Joe Lloyd has uncovered much of the secret arena coordination between YTL, L&G and Bristol City Council officers, including the offshore tax haven use by YTL, ensuring that even less money gets returned to the taxpayer. In fact, none of it might have come light without his work.
Future millions for the L&G site
The costs to the taxpayer don’t stop once these projects are completed.
Millions will still need to be paid from taxpayers for the contract with L&G. The current terms include a 250-year lease of the Temple Island site, which is of great value because not only is it next to the train station but also part of the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone — one of the UK’s largest regeneration works.
The council are also guaranteeing office rents for 40 years at a time when office work has begun to decrease dramatically due to the pandemic. Deutsche Bank are seeing 60% reduction in work from offices and Forbes say remote work is here to stay. [April 2021 articles]
And this is on top of the £2.5m Bristol taxpayers have paid to L&G for exploratory work before any contract has been signed and with no guarantee that any housing or conference centre will be built. That sum is included in the £4.5 million stated earlier.
£32m of public funds is being used to clean the Temple Island site before L&G begin their development there. This money comes from the grant the South West LEP were going to provide to offset the funding for the Temple Island Arena.
Socialise the cost, privatise the profit
This privatisation pathway for would-be public assets is one that works very well for corporations who get to keep the profit, but not so well for taxpayers who have to keep paying the costs.
It’s a form of state socialism for the rich.
As Noam Chomsky says in Failed States, “the costs and risks of the coming phases of the industrial economy were to be socialized, with eventual profits privatized, a form of state socialism for the rich on which much of the advanced US economy relies.”
Marvin Rees has been accused of bringing US style politics to Bristol. Well, now he’s seemingly very proud of bringing profit to private corporations in the US-economy style.
The council’s scrutiny board was highlighting this in 2018:
YTL may be taking on much of the costs but they are also “the main beneficiary of the significant infrastructure investment,” which we have seen goes up to many millions out of the public purse. [link]
No matter what the mayor says, the invoices and the future costs have come and are coming straight from taxpayers’ pockets.
The profits all go to YTL.
List of payments from the public for the YTL arena and L&G
£75,000 to Savills for development management for the Brabazon Arena
£115,000 to Savills for development management at Brabazon Arena — DM Services (Stage 2)
£400,000 to Mott Macdonald for “Technical Advisor and NEC3 Supervisor’s Representatives Services”
£100,000 — July 2020 — Womble Bond Dickinson for further legal advice on Temple Island
£1,443,739 –August 2020 — Enabling and Infrastructure works at Temple Island
£1200 — July 2019 — to Womble Bond Dickinson for legal services
£15,000 — Jan 2020 — to Womble Bond Dickinson further legal services for sale of Temple Island
£3,600 — Jan 2020 — to Womble Bond Dickinson Temple Island — procurement/HoT advice
£1800 — August 2019 — to Womble Bond Dickinson legal services [redacted reason]
£500 — Sept 2019 — to Womble Bond Dickinson [redacted]
£10,200 — January 2019 — to Womble Bond Dickinson Temple Island procurement advice
£4,800 — July 2019 — to Womble Bond Dickinson procurement/HoT advice
£17,700 — September 2019 — for valuation advice of Temple Island
£17,700 — Jan 2020 — CBRE for valuation advice of Temple Island
£3510 — June 2019 -Amions Temple Island impact short economic impact note in respect of Temple Island area assessment
£95,363 July 2020 — KPMG Temple Island Value for Money Assessment
£5400 — July 2020 — KPMG — attendance at scrutiny briefing
£5100 — July 2020 — KPMG attendance at call-in meeting
£31,002.30 — September 2019 — to Perfect Circle for Temple Island
£2,000,000 to the G&R Directorate for development work on the project [cabinet decision Feb 2020]
£5788.80 — Dec 2019 — to Perfect Circle for Temple Island work
£2880 — Dec 2019 — to Social for copywriting support for Temple Island
£500,000 — July 2019 — to L&G for exploratory work for Temple Island
£233,000 — Nigel Greenhalgh’s annual salary as arena consultant