Contractors ‘guarantee’ arena at Temple Meads can be delivered on budget

An arena at Filton would “sign the death warrant for Bristol city centre”, one Labour councillor has claimed.

Jo Sergeant, a councillor for Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston, made the comments during the second day of scrutiny meetings relating to the long-awaited arena on Wednesday.

One of the main issues revolved around the council’s decision to sell off part of Arena Island to the University of Bristol to build its new £300m campus and whether that deal could have decreased the value of land around the site.

Speaking on the issue, Sergeant said the council seems to have made a “strategic error” when it sold part of the land to Bristol University.

She added: “Had we not sold the land, we would still have a viable case for the arena near Temple Meads.”

Sergeant also said that she would rather have no arena in Bristol if the Brabazon Hangar in Filton was going to be the only option because it would “sign a death warrant for Bristol city centre”.

Scrutiny board members spent nearly four hours questioning city council officers about the arena value for money reports created by independent auditors KPMG.

The Arena Island site near Temple Meads

The primary focus of Wednesday’s meeting was supposed to be the alternative proposals for Arena Island if the mayor decides to build an arena in Filton.

The plans, which have been put forward by council officers, would see 400 homes, 26,000spm of office space and a conference centre built on the site.

Colin Molton, interim executive director for growth and regeneration, said the council “want to build something that is absolutely ground-breakingly special” at the Temple Quarter location.

But the plans were met by some scepticism from councillors, who noted that they were currently in the very early stages and there was no guarantee that this mixed-use development would ever come to fruition.

And some councillors even accused officers of trying to persuade them to back the alternative proposals for Arena Island.

During the meeting, Stephen Clarke, a Green councillor for Southville, said he didn’t feel like he was getting “very objective advice” from officers, but “instead felt like he was sat in front of a developer who was trying to persuade them to go with their scheme”.

But officers have said they are completely objective. Denise Murray, acting executive director of resources, said she was not wedded to either scheme and was just presenting councillors with the facts.

An image of what the YTL arena on the former Filton Airfield site might look like

There was also a lot of frustration from members that more information about the alternative proposals had not been brought to the meeting.

Paula O’Rourke, Green councillor for Clifton, told officers she was “very cross” to discover there were visuals of the plans which were available for councillors to look at, but they had not been brought along.

“My faith in the whole thing has just been reduced by this. It just makes me feel that information is being hid from us,” she added.

“How annoying to know you had more you could have brought to this meeting, like visuals, but just didn’t bother.”

The value for money report suggested a city centre arena would cost almost £200m, but would make money and improve the cultural offering of the region.

In contrast, KPMG said the Brabazon venue would cost less public money and could bring in more visitors.

Buckingham Group say long-held hopes to build an arena at Temple Meads can be delivered on budget

Buckingham Group, the contractors for Arena Island, were at the meeting to explain the firm’s position and answer questions.

Oran McCloskey, the deputy managing director of the sports and leisure side of Buckingham said the company could build the arena near Temple Meads for £122m. The approved budget is currently £123.5m.

This is significantly lower than the estimated project cost in the value for money reports which is £156.3m.

However Stuart Woods, arena project lead for the council, said the higher figure took into account the authority’s risk contingency if the contractors did not stick to budget.

McCloskey said he could “guarantee” his firm would not go over the target budget and that they were “shovel-ready” and could go onto the Arena Island site tomorrow and start doing work.

Representatives from Arena Island Ltd and YTL, the company that owns the Brabazon Hangar, are expected to attend the next scrutiny meeting on Friday (June 22) to answer questions.

A final scrutiny meeting has been scheduled from Monday July 2 – just one day before mayor Marvin Rees is expected to make his decision on where the arena should be built.

Kate Wilson is a local democracy reporter for Bristol.

Read more: ‘Bristol Arena report is comparing apples and pears’