North Yorkshire Council has stopped publishing profit and loss figures for Harrogate Convention Centre, raising key questions about financial transparency of the publicly owned venue.

The conference and events venue plays a significant role in Harrogate’s economy, attracting around 150,000 visitors a year and generating millions of pounds for the hospitality sector. However, it has also been a longstanding financial burden on local taxpayers.

A report published by North Yorkshire Council in March 2024 revealed that the convention centre had recorded annual losses in every year from 2018 to 2024, with cumulative losses totalling £11.53 million.

As one of only a handful of publicly owned conference and events venues in the UK, its financial performance has direct implications for local taxpayers.

But the council has now confirmed it no longer analyses the venue’s finances on a profit and loss basis, making it impossible to establish from its latest figures whether the centre is operating at a profit or continuing to require public subsidy.

Uncertain future

Harrogate Convention Centre opened in 1982 and famously hosted that year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

More than four decades later, the venue faces questions about its future, with ageing infrastructure and a history of financial losses adding to the pressure to secure its long-term viability.

Paula Lorimer, the convention centre director since 2019, appears to have left her £121,898 role this year.

When North Yorkshire Council took ownership in 2023, it said all options were on the table. A report published the following year outlined plans to explore “commercial opportunities” to reduce the annual subsidy required from local taxpayers.

The report warned that, without action, the convention centre could accumulate losses of £278 million over the following 40 years.

No commercial ventures have been announced since then. However, the council approved £7.1 million for an upgrade to Studio 2, intended to provide additional breakout space. The projected cost has since risen to £9.4 million.

Although the covid pandemic hit the convention centre hard, its largest annual loss in the period covered by the council’s report was recorded in 2023/24, when the deficit reached £2.69 million.

The Stray Ferret sought to establish what has happened to the venue’s finances since then.

New accounting regime

On August 18, we submitted a freedom of information request to North Yorkshire Council seeking the convention centre’s income and expenditure figures for each of the previous 10 years.

The council responded on September 10 with the following figures.

According to the figures supplied, income exceeded expenditure in every year listed. On the face of it, this appears to contradict the council’s March 2024 report, which recorded annual losses between 2018 and 2024.

However, the council said the figures provided did not include “central costs”. These cover a range of expenses, including utilities, maintenance and centrally provided services such as human resources, legal advice, insurance, training, public sector procurement, health and safety management, and the staffing costs associated with organising maintenance.

The council also explained that it uses a different accounting regime from its predecessor, Harrogate Borough Council.

It said “the only readily available constant” for comparison between the two accounting systems was the direct income and expenditure data it had supplied.

In effect, the figures exclude significant overheads and cannot establish whether the convention centre is making a profit or loss overall.

Michael Constantine, the centre’s head of operations, described the figures as providing an “illustrative comparison” with information from previous years.

Target income

When we asked whether the council could supply a full profit and loss breakdown, its press office intervened and provided a statement from Nic Harne, the council’s corporate director of community development.

Rather than providing a profit or loss figure, Mr Harne referred to the venue’s annual income target.

Mr Harne said:

The statement offers an indication of how closely the venue came to meeting its income target, but it does not establish whether it covered all its operating costs, including the central costs excluded from the figures supplied to us.

That distinction matters because the council’s 2024 report recorded a £2.69 million loss for 2023/24, despite North Yorkshire Council having taken ownership of the venue in 2023.

Why, then, was the council able to calculate and publish a full loss figure for that year but unable to provide comparable figures for subsequent years?

Mr Harne said: 

We made a further request to the council’s press office, asking whether it could provide a profit or loss figure for either 2024/25 or 2025/26.

The response was unequivocal: “Harrogate Convention Centre is not currently analysed on a profit and loss basis.”

As a result, it is not possible to compare the venue’s overall financial performance in recent years with the losses previously reported by the council.

Worth £45 million a year?

The council’s 2024 report estimated Harrogate Convention Centre contributed £45 million a year to the local economy.

The figure is frequently cited as evidence of the venue’s economic importance. We therefore asked the council how it had been calculated and when the underlying research was carried out.

A council spokesperson said the estimate was “based on national survey data from VisitBritain”.

However, VisitBritain delegate-spending research published in 2017 put the convention centre’s contribution to the local economy at £30 million.

The £45 million figure appears to reflect an updated estimate that takes inflation into account, rather than a new assessment of the venue’s economic impact. 

There is little doubt Harrogate Convention Centre is an important asset for the town. 

But economic impact and financial performance are not the same thing.

The council’s own figures showed cumulative losses of £11.53 million between 2018 and 2024. Yet it has now confirmed that it no longer calculates or publishes the venue’s overall profit or loss.

That leaves taxpayers without a clear picture of whether the convention centre’s finances have improved since North Yorkshire Council took ownership, whether the annual subsidy has fallen, or whether further losses are being absorbed elsewhere in the council’s accounts.

For a publicly owned venue with a history of multimillion-pound losses and a major capital investment programme, the question remains: how can taxpayers judge whether it is delivering value for money if the council no longer tells them whether it is making a profit or a loss?