The i360’s new owner has offered to pay a percentage of its annual income towards council projects.
The offer, contained in a confidential report to Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet, was made public in answer to a freedom of information (FoI) request.
The report said that the attraction’s new owner Nightcap Limited would pick one area to support financially every year based on a shortlist provided by the council.
When the viewing tower was granted planning permission in 2006, one condition was that 1 per cent of ticket revenue should go to the council for environmental renewal, maintenance and improvement works.
In a cabinet discussion in January about whether to write off the £51 million debt of the former owner, the deputy leader of the council, Jacob Taylor, said that he was not sure if the 1 per cent condition would still apply.
Councillor Taylor said at the time that talks were under way about a potential revenue share but urged people to accept that the outstanding £51 million was “essentially gone”.
Yesterday (Tuesday 13 May), Councillor Taylor said: “We were pleased to be able to secure a commitment from the Brighton i360 to pay the council 1 per cent of the revenue coming from the tower. We wish them well and have full faith in them as operators.
“Where this money is spent will be agreed by the council and the Brighton i360 and, while it is unlikely to be a decision which goes before cabinet, we will make sure the process is open and transparent and that residents are fully aware of the difference this income makes.”
Councillor Taylor also said that a tendering process was under way for an independent investigation into the decision-making process that led to the council agreeing to broker the i360 loan with the Public Works Loan Board.
The council still owes £32 million to be repaid at the rate of about £2.2 million a year until 2041. The additional £19 million of the i360’s £51 million debt to the council was mostly interest.
Councillor Taylor said: “Given the colossal amount of money that was lost because of Green Party and Tory decisions, we are keen to discover how and why the initial decision on funding was taken.
“This is about learning lessons for the council in how it makes large capital decisions.
“As a reminder, Labour councillors argued against the huge funding package and voted against it in 2014.
“Labour councillors Warren Morgan and Les Hamilton were, unfortunately, proved right when they warned it was an unsustainable amount of money to lend.
“The scope of our planned investigation has been prepared and we are now in the procurement phase.
“As a piece of commissioned work, we must go through the proper tender process and make sure the investigation is not only at a level we and residents expect but also delivers value for money.
“This is not a service we regularly commission so it has taken some time to fully research and understand the market. We hope to be able to confirm the timelines and parameters of the investigation shortly.”
One reason given for writing off the debt to allow the sale of the i360 was so that the council could receive business rates from the attraction’s new operator.
But the FoI request by journalist John Keenan also revealed that Nightcap asked for 75 per cent business rate relief in the first year of operation. This was turned down, according to the report.
The financial statement said that there was a cap of £65,000 on business rate relief which was given to 84 local charities.
If Nightcap’s request was granted, it would have cost £100,000 and could “potentially expose the council to further requests without a consistent policy”.
Nightcap bought the i360 for £150,000 from the administrators, Interpath, and said that it had invested about £400,000 in getting the venue operating again.
The former i360 operator ceased trading in December when the company filed for administration, leaving more than 100 people jobless just before Christmas.
Nightcap declined to comment on the agreement with the council.
Councillor Taylor can try and point fingers all he likes, but it was his decision and his colleagues decision to pretty much give the i360 away. The rushed sale may well turn out to be the largest and most questionable selling off of assets the city has seen.
Labour talked down the i360 for years and years for political convenience (after supporting the plans from the very outset). Literally everything they say is politically motivated rather than in the interest of the city, and I’m getting pretty tired of it tbh!
Exactly this. Labour are already doing a pre-determined outcome by saying: “”As a reminder, Labour councillors argued against the huge funding package and voted against it in 2014.
“Labour councillors Warren Morgan and Les Hamilton were, unfortunately, proved right when they warned it was an unsustainable amount of money to lend.
“The scope of our planned investigation has been prepared and we are now in the procurement phase.
“As a piece of commissioned work, we must go through the proper tender process and make sure the investigation is not only at a level we and residents expect but also delivers value for money.”
and how much more taxpayers’ money is this Labour administration going to waste whilst many suffer from their poor decisions to date?
Understand your frustration, Trevor. I share it, especially when history gets rewritten. Labour did support the i360 in July 2012, when the proposed loan was around £14 million. But they strongly opposed the much larger £36 million loan that was pushed through in 2014.
Despite Labour’s opposition, the expanded loan was approved by Green and Conservative councillors. Labour’s initial support was for a financially measured investment; their later resistance was rooted in concern over escalating costs and public risk. That’s not hypocrisy – it’s fiscal responsibility. Something Conservatives once championed, at least back then.
I believe Robert’s comments here are disingenuous. The majority of public funding risk came from the expanded loan package pushed through despite Labour’s objections. It is not political motivation to commission an investigation into a public financial failure. In fact, it would be negligent not to. Labour councillors are simply acting on concerns they raised a decade ago, now vindicated by events. The real issue would be if they ignored their past warnings and refused to act now, I’m sure Robert would agree.
The 1% revenue share only applies to ticket sales on the i360 attraction. How much are Nightcap paying to rent the 22,000 sq ft of licensed hospitality space at the foot of the attraction? It can’t just be business rates. If so, Sarah Willingham has just made a fool of BHCC. A market rent for that site would be around £400-500k per year
I’m writing to bhc because i have an old derelict pier in hove that they might be interested in. Id let it go for only 50 million.
It could turn tourism up to 11 like the London EyeSore.
Can they fix the doors too !
51m down the drain, the taxpayer gets to shoulder the cost and not one single head has rolled over
this. There is no price for failure when you’re spending someone else’s money. And sold on for less than the price of a studio flat in town. An absolute travesty. We’d have been better off with a rebuild of the West Pier which everyone could have accessed, instead of what’s essentially a bar/restaurant on a stick, a costly one trick pony.
As for Labour’s attempt at being Teflon, I’ve seen Tory, Green and Labour councils, all of them incompetent and wasteful. It seems that no matter who we elect, we end up with an absolute shower. Still, I’m sure some good lunches and nice holidays were had by councillors during the planing process.
We told them the visitor figures did not stack up.
We told them that Jason Kitcat being a director of Coast to Capital who loaned the money to B@H was a conflict of interest.
Telling you now, this will fail again and will ultimately be demolished.
The 1% revenue share only applies to ticket sales on the i360 attraction.
How much are Nightcap paying to rent the 22,000 sq ft of licensed hospitality space at the foot of the attraction?
It can’t just be business rates. If so, Sarah Willingham has just made a fool of BHCC.
Any suggestion that she is in this for the good of the city is laughable.