Bradford Live: Costs and opening date questions to council

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.