£20m funding bid for Harrogate Convention Centre refurbishment rejected

North Yorkshire Council’s hopes of winning £20m from the government to go towards a major refurbishment of Harrogate Convention Centre were dashed today.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced the winners of the third round of the Levelling Up Fund, with more than £1.1bn awarded to 55 schemes — but Harrogate was not on the list.

Unlike the first two rounds, councils were not invited to make formal bids for funding.

Instead, the government selected the best bids from round two that were not chosen last time.

The government scored each bid out of 100, with criteria including deliverability and the characteristics of each place.

The news will come as a blow but not necessarily a surprise to North Yorkshire Council.

Previously published feedback on the convention centre bid described it as “relatively strong” but said it lacked “evidence and rationale” into how the proposals would increase business.

The council has still not decided if it will proceed with a £49m refurbishment of the facility which it inherited from the defunct Harrogate Borough Council.

A contractor has been appointed to draw up more detailed plans for the redevelopment and a final decision was expected this year.

The convention centre opened in 1982 with conferences providing a boost to the town’s bars, restaurants and hotels, however, it has struggled to turned a profit.

It’s hoped the refurbishment would help the facility compete with other conference venues in the north but it remains unclear how North Yorkshire Council, which is looking to slash £70m from its budget over the next three years, will pay for it.

Nic Harne, the council’s corporate director for community development, said:

“We received £19m from the second round of levelling up funding for redeveloping Catterick Garrison’s town centre.

“We are disappointed that other projects have not been allocated funding under the department’s assessment process and will be seeking feedback on why those schemes were not prioritised.

“Our bids were submitted by the former councils and we could not put any further bids in.”

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Government says council’s £20m bid for Harrogate Convention Centre lacked ‘evidence and rationale’

Harrogate Borough Council’s bid for £20 million of government money to upgrade the town’s convention centre lacked evidence and rationale and may have over-stated the economic benefits.

Government feedback on the bid, released following a freedom of information request by the Stray Ferret, revealed several areas of concerns with the bid.

This is despite the fact the council, which was abolished at the end of March, paid consultants £45,000 as part of its submission to ministers.

More than 100 projects were awarded a share of £2.1 billion from round two of the Levelling Up Fund in January.

But the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, led by Michael Gove, rejected Harrogate’s application.

The decision was a significant blow to the council’s plans for a £49 million upgrade of the ageing centre and cast further doubt on the facility’s future.

The feedback described the bid as “relatively strong” and listed stakeholder engagement and deliverability as strengths. But the economic case was widely criticised.

The feedback said:

“There were some key areas that could have been enhanced, particularly in the economic case relating to the analysis of monetised costs and benefits, and the appropriateness of data sources and evidence.”

Harrogate Convention Centre, which is earmarked for a £47 million renovation.

The rejection was a blow to plans for a £49m upgrade to Harrogate Convention Centre.

It went on to say although the bid “evidenced the need to revitalise the visitor economy”, it “could have been strengthened by drawing on a broader range of socioeconomic indicators to demonstrate the multifaceted nature of the problems that the intervention had been designed to address”.

It added:.

“There was a lack of supporting evidence and rationale. The bid could have been strengthened by incorporating more evidence to support the assumptions linking outputs to outcomes and impacts, e.g., it would have been good to understand whether there was unmet demand for this type of space, and how the increased capacity of the centre would address the problems identified.”

Benefits ‘may have been overstated’

The feedback also said the council’s economic case was not based on government guidance. Citing one example of this, it said:

“There was no justification for the 40-year appraisal period (typically it would be 30 years) and so benefits may have been overstated. More detail and discussion in relation to the counterfactual could be provided too – for example, the application mentions that they could borrow money and it also states that £115m of investment would be required in the ‘Do Nothing’ scenario, without any further explanation.

“There were only environmental benefits monetised; with no attempt to monetise other categories of benefits that would be typical for this type of proposal, e.g., wider land value uplift, potential wellbeing benefits from arts/culture, etc.”

In a section on deliverability, the council was praised for its “strong, coherent bid with a high level of detail and explanation throughout”.

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The feedback also recognised the bid’s “strong levels of engagement with most of the relevant stakeholders”.

North Yorkshire Council, which succeeded Harrogate Borough Council on April 1, provided the feedback following our freedom of information request.

Richard Cooper, the Conservative leader of Harrogate Borough Council at the time of the bid, has said he will not comment on any council issues relating to his time in charge of the local authority.