The continuing failure to secure a building contractor for the construction of Southport’s new Marine Lake Events Centre is harming Southport’s and Sefton’s economic growth says Mike Prendergast, Conservative Group Leader on Sefton Council.
The £73 million project has been an ongoing saga with 2 previous contractors walking away after concerns about costs. The old Floral Hall has been demolished and millions spent in the process so far.
Councillor Prendergast said, “The failure to secure a contractor to build the new centre is hugely worrying for Southport and local businesses and puts at risk the opportunity provided by the Town Deal funding. Many potential projects, linked to the building of MLEC are in limbo until the construction is confirmed and completed.”
“Millions of pounds of public money have been spent on demolition and consultants and all we have to show for it is a huge void on the Promenade with no building contractor secured yet.”
“The current situation has been reached through poor contract management at a political level. We’ve had 2 contractors walk away and we’re now speaking to a 3rd. The dither and delay in getting this done is going to cost taxpayers more money.”
“The reality is that because of the amount of time taken, the construction costs are going to have increased massively. Sefton Council has no money, they’re selling assets to meet day to day expenditure and their plan to replenish reserves is to raid pension savings.”
“So in order to get this project over the line now, it’s going to require significant levels of borrowing as the original budget of £73 million is going to end up being easily over £100 million. That level of borrowing is going to come with huge annual payments which will be shouldered by taxpayers here in Southport and across Sefton.”
“We’ve repeatedly called for greater transparency and accountability on this project and better financial management.”
“When voters go to the polls on 7th May, they need to remember that the reason we have no contractor secured and that Sefton Council has no money left is down to one fact, Labour aren’t very good at making commercial decisions or looking after taxpayer money.”
“When the money runs out they just come back to the taxpayer asking for more, in the form of borrowing money or more Council Tax rises, up over 55% since Labour have run Sefton Council.”
“We can’t go on like this and Southport and the whole of Sefton needs serious local government from people who are prepared to make the difficult decisions needed to get our local economy moving again.”
