Guildhall future – coalition under pressure?

Guildhall drawing

It appears that one of the first acts of the new coalition led Council was to submit (on 22nd May 2015) a Heritage Lottery Funding bid for the creation of a visitor attraction incorporating the Guildhall and Council Chamber together with Common Hall lane.

There was no consultation prior to the bid being submitted.

The bid is for £1.8 million.

A previous application for funding had been turned down by HLF on the grounds that the project was too “commercial”.

Who authorised the new bid is unclear.

It is claimed that it would create a “heritage” destination attracting 30,000 visitors a year and would “tell the story of York”. In that respect it has echoes of the “York Story” exhibition which was available for public view in St Mary’s Castlegate until about 25 years ago. That project collapsed due to reducing visitor numbers. St Mary’s currently is operated by the York Museums Trust and stages a variety of exhibitions.

The bid talks in glowing terms of the digital media hub. “The planned digital media arts hub based within the heritage complex provide a remarkable symmetry”. This despite the £9.2 million expenditure on the media centre having been clearly rejected by electors only 3 weeks previously.

The bid document fails to include any kind of business plan for the “heritage attraction”. The impact on Council taxpayers is unclear. Ongoing revenue costs are likely to be high.

It is unlikely that the HLF would grant any funding without being confident that they project could be sustained.

Although worthy of further development, it is unlikely that any responsible member would formally commit to the project on the basis of the figures so far made public.

A draft revenue account income and expenditure forecast should be made available to the meeting.

A report on the future of the Guildhall site more generally is being considered by the Council’s Executive next week.  
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York Knights Rugby in Westfield over next few weeks as new stadium deal is signed

Knights summer programme
York City Knights sign new Community Stadium deal

Today marks a significant milestone in the Community Stadium project, which has seen the York City Knights officially sign an agreement with the council over a new Community Stadium partnership.

A Council media release says “York City Knights’ Directors joined Cllr Nigel Ayre (Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Tourism), Cllr Chris Steward (Leader of City of York Council) and Tim Atkins (Community Stadium Project Manager) at the council’s West Offices today to formalise the contractual agreement and cement a new chapter in the stadium project”.

The York Community Stadium partners had hoped to provide a new 8,000 seat stadium for football and rugby league, a leisure facility which would include a gym, 25 metre, six-lane swimming pool, a fun pool and training pool, as well as a new sports hall and dance studio. The Community Hub on site would provide bespoke facilities for project partners with a focus on promoting health and well-being for York residents and visitors. The development also included a number of new retail units restaurants and a multi-screen cinema complex.

Concerns about the ability of the Council to fund all aspects of the project were raised earlier today.

It is unclear from the Council’s media release whether the Rugby Club will be given the use of Bootham Crescent in the period leading up to the opening of any new stadium
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Community Stadium opening slips to 2017, cost pressures mounting

While no one really believed that the new Community stadium would be completed by July 2016, it now seems likely that the project will slip by a further 12 months.

There are two problems:

Issues with the Rugby Club also rumble on in the background.08-27-2014-08-48-27-555

Since 2010, when funding for a replacement stadium was secured, progress has been slow. Essential planning permissions for the enabling development were secured in 2012  but, rather than getting on with building the stadium on the “Chesterfield” model, the then Labour controlled Council decided to outsource all building based leisure facilities (including the Monks Cross complex) as part of a single contract.

This involved a laborious 24 month tendering process which was needed to meet EU regulations.

Ironically it was this delay that appears to have scuppered the deal.

The £12 million available in 2012  for the project would have bought a good quality stadium and to a design which would have guaranteed some non match day income. No taxpayer’s subsidy would have been required although the Council had allocated a £4 million fund which – if drawn down – would have been repaid from stadium income

There was little building activity taking place in 2012 when the country was still in the grips of the recession. Work was scarce so tender prices were keen

In the end GLL were declared the preferred bidder in 2014. GLL had been running the Huntington Stadium, Waterworld and the adjacent fitness facilities for several years.

However they had sought interim subsidies to keep the facilities going. No usage figures for Waterworld were published by the Council at the time although these are now expected to emerge into the pubic arena.

Despite the exiting stadium being abandoned and Waterworld closing last year, financial issues continued.
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