Bradford Live: Costs and opening date questions to council

Officials are being urged to provide financial transparency about the Bradford Live project amid fears the costs of the city’s new flagship music venue could soar.

The former Odeon Cinema building is in the final stages of being converted into a 3,800-seat venue.

Councilors were keen to raise questions at a meeting this week about who will actually run the venue when it opens and the relationship between Bradford Council and promoter NEC after reports of problems.

During Tuesday’s meeting at Bradford City Hall, the Labor administration was pushed for clarity and to release key financial figures associated with the project.

The BBC understands the final cost of the project could rise to £50m in the long term.

The BBC was told the council had taken out additional loans worth millions repayable over 20 years – repayments to be partly offset by ticket revenue.

The costs of the project had previously been put at between £22m and £25m, funded through a mix of grants and loans.

Councilor Mike Pollard, the finance leader of the opposition Conservatives, said he believed there were “very serious problems with this project”.

He asked the council to “confirm how the revenue budget…required to cover the total council loan for this project, is plausible to be met from the venue’s operations”.

In response, the council’s executive member for regeneration Alex Ross Shaw, who also serves as a director for the company that runs Bradford Live, said: “Part of the funding is in the form of a repayable loan from the council to be repaid with income from rent. from property and screen rent.”

He said the loan was expected to be repaid, with additional funding coming from a council grant that was already factored into the authority’s accounts, as well as other external grants.

Pressed further on “what justification can be provided” for withholding key numbers from the public, Mr Ross-Shaw said he had taken advice from council officers.

“We don’t like to keep anything confidential that doesn’t have to be. So I’m sure as and when things can be released, they will be,” he added.

The NEC has refused to comment on whether it is still involved in the Bradford Live project, despite repeated approaches.

However, in April a spokesman for Bradford Live told the BBC: “Bradford Live has a contract with the NEC to deliver this venue and we are working on that contract.”

At the meeting, Labor council leader Susan Hinchcliffe was pressed on the situation by Lib Dem group leader Brendan Stubbs, who reminded her that he had previously called the location a “game changer for the city”.

Ms Hinchcliffe replied: “The work is continuing and will be completed shortly at the Odeon and I don’t think there is anything more to add to that.”

Bradford Live is wholly owned by a company of the same name, which is in turn owned by the council.

New company details for Bradford Live, filed at Companies House last month, confirm that “the intended future activities are lawful”.

The company’s latest set of full accounts, in December 2023, show it had fixed assets of £19m and loans of around £1.8m “falling within a year”.