Liverpool Council is “confident” it will receive millions of pounds owed to it by the firm that operates the M&S Bank Arena.
It was revealed last month The ACC Liverpool Group, which operates the event complex on the King’s Dock including the arena, is in debt worth millions of pounds to the council. The local authority is owed around £7.1m by the group for what it described in a statement as historical debt relating to property transactions between 2015 and March 2020.
Of that, £2.6m is in year trading sums. A cabinet report in December revealed the council had put aside £2.5m in reserves to cover against non-payment of outstanding lease rentals.
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Mark Bourgeois, the council’s outgoing interim director of city development, told a meeting of its finance and resources select committee how an action plan has been put together by the ACC Liverpool Group, with a series of meetings held between the council and the arena company to establish a way forward. Mr Bourgeois confirmed £2.5m had been paid back since the committee last met.
He added the council and ACC Liverpool Group had a “real focus on this” and when a business plan had been received, a “proper conversation around affordability” would be held between both parties. Mr Bourgeois added how the council was “confident” a future tranche of debt would be paid down and the full repayment would be completed “in a relatively short period of time.”
Among the repayments to be made include £1.9m of insurance money the ACC Liverpool Group received amid the major fire at the arena’s car park on New Year’s Eve 2017. This will be completed once the business plan has been finalised.
In a statement last month, Faye Dyer, managing director of The ACC Liverpool Group, said: “The £7.1m balance due comprises £2.6m of in year trading sums, which will be paid prior to the financial year end, alongside £4.5m of historical debt. The debt relates to property transactions from 2015 to March 2020, following the expansion of the campus and facilitating a period in which the group successfully grew its market share and presence.
“The benefits of this support are being recouped over the longer period of investment. We have set out a number of options for the council to recover this historical debt in our recent business plan and look forward to finalising this, alongside signing new leases, later this year.
“Our trading results continue to recover after a successful return to full capacity live events following the pandemic and our financial performance now facilitates the transfer of further property related cost obligations to ourselves, reducing future expenditure for Liverpool Council. We are proud to have played a key role in the renaissance of Liverpool since 2008 and we look forward to continuing our positive relationship with Liverpool Council, boosting the city region’s image as a place in which to live, work and invest.”
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