Ripon toilet block re-opens after nine-day closure£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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Consultants paid £45,000 for failed Harrogate Convention Centre bid

Consultants were paid £45,000 of taxpayers’ money on a failed bid to secure £20 million to upgrade Harrogate Convention Centre.

The government rejected Harrogate Borough Council‘s application for funding, which would have gone towards a planned £49 million redevelopment of the convention centre, in January.

The failure of the bid, which was made to round two of the Levelling Up Fund, means the future of the ageing venue remains unclear.

It subsequently emerged Harrogate Borough Council, which was abolished at the end of March, paid consultants £45,000 as part of its submission to the government.

Cllr Derek Bastiman, the Conservative executive member for open to business at North Yorkshire Council, which succeeded Harrogate Borough Council, told the Stray Ferret the Levelling Up Fund presented “a significant opportunity for government investment in the area” and “a detailed bid was made to secure money for the Harrogate Convention Centre”.

Its failure has led to questions about what went wrong and whether future funding bids could improve.

Why did the Harrogate bid fail?

The convention centre bid was one of five made in North Yorkshire for a total of £122 million from round two of the Levelling Up Fund.

The only one to succeed was a £19 million application for a scheme in the Richmond area at Catterick — in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s constituency.

In response to questions from Cllr Mike Schofield, an independent who represents Harlow and St George’s on North Yorkshire Council, Cllr Bastiman said government feedback “centred around the value for money aspects of the bids and sections where more detail would have been beneficial”.

He added:

“We have also taken lessons learned from a review of other successful bids.”

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Cllr Bastiman revealed £796,000 was spent on consultants for the five applications, including the convention centre.

The government is expected to publish details of round three of the Levelling Up Fund this month, which could see another bid for convention centre funding.

Cllr Bastiman told Cllr Schofield:

“There is uncertainty as to how the next round of funding will operate including confirmation as to whether those areas previously successful and in receipt of levelling up funds will be eligible to bid.

“If eligible, we will need to review the detailed guidance before considering which projects for the North Yorkshire area would be prioritised to increase the likelihood of success.”

Warning that Harrogate would ‘wither on the vine’ without convention centre

Harrogate would ‘wither on the vine’ if its convention centre closed, the woman in charge of the facility has warned.

Harrogate Convention Centre director Paula Lorimer and Harrogate Borough Council’s director of economy and culture, Trevor Watson, updated councillors on Monday night about £49m plans to redevelop the council-run building so it can better compete with rival convention centres in the north.

Mr Watson said the council has now appointed a contractor to draw up more detailed plans for the redevelopment. But whether the vision is ever realised is far from certain.

North Yorkshire Council will make a final decision on whether the project goes ahead in the summer.

Ms Lorimer said she will meet senior figures from North Yorkshire County Council on Friday to discuss the building’s future.

Talks will focus on how the new council can attract investment for the redevelopment, which she said it “desperately needs”.

Last month the council failed in its £20m Levelling Up Fund bid for the convention centre redevelopment but Ms Lorimer suggested the council would bid again for funding in its third round.

She also said other ideas for attracting investment could involve bringing in an outside “interested party” to the table. Ms Lorimer said:

“Believe you me, I’m not giving up on getting grant funding for this convention centre.

“There are opportunities to circle the wagons and look for other investment opportunities as well as Levelling Up funding. I do feel we should continue to have a go at that as well as various other decarbonisation pots.

“This is what we’ll be talking about on Friday, where are we going to get the funding, how are we going to get investment?

“It could be an interested party to invest, it could be hotels, it could be a number of things.”

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The council has previously warned that if the convention centre redevelopment doesn’t go ahead, the district could lose out on up to £250 million over the next 40 years in lost tourism and business spending.

Chris Aldred, Liberal Democrat councillor for Fairfax, said the convention centre “absolutely underpins the local economy”. He added:

“[Without the convention centre] Harrogate would be a totally different town. We wouldn’t have a range of restaurants, we wouldn’t have the splendid shops we have, we wouldn’t have communications and travel systems if the convention centre wasn’t there.”

In response, Ms Lorimer said:

“It’s true. We drive a lot of business and leisure visitors. But it’s not just the business tourism market that would stop, it’s leisure as well. Harrogate would wither on the vine without the convention centre.”

Council leader ‘disappointed’ after Harrogate Convention Centre funding refusal

The leader of Harrogate Borough Council has said he is “disappointed” at a government decision to reject its bid for £20 million to go towards the redevelopment of Harrogate Convention Centre.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced last night more than 100 projects had been awarded a share of £2.1 billion as part of round two of its flagship levelling up fund.

However, the council’s bid to help fund the £49 million renovation of the town’s convention centre was refused.

It’s the second time the government has rejected funding for the project after the council requested financial support through the North Yorkshire devolution deal last year.

Cllr Richard Cooper, Conservative leader of the council, said he was “slightly surprised” at the government’s decision to refuse its bid.

He said:

“While disappointed that we were not successful in our bid I look forward to exploring with the minister the detailed reasons why that is the case.

“The decision is slightly surprising since the government rejected the inclusion of funding for the Harrogate Convention Centre redevelopment in the devolution agreement with North Yorkshire County Council.  This was done on the basis that we could bid to the levelling up fund, a bid which they have now also rejected.

“But if you bid for funding you have to be prepared for the possibility that you will not be successful. This was the second round of levelling up funding and there will be a third. We aim to be successful in that third round.”

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Control of the centre will transfer to North Yorkshire Council on April 1, when Harrogate Borough Council is abolished.

Last week Richard Flinton, who will be chief executive of North Yorkshire Council, refused to commit to the £49 million redevelopment and said the conference and events venue needed to be vibrant and relevant in the face of competition from a new venue in Leeds rather than “an enormous drain on public finances”.

Criticism of levelling up fund

Meanwhile, the government has faced criticism of its levelling up fund from officials at the Northern Powerhouse Partnership — a partnership group between civic leaders and businesses in the north of England.

Henri Murison, chief executive of the partnership, said those areas which had missed out on funding would ask “searching questions” about the process of holding funding rounds.

He told BBC News:

“People in the places that have received no money are going to be asking very searching questions about why these competitive funding rounds are being used when, for example, South Tyneside is now within a devolution area, Bradford has had a mayor for several years now. 

“Why on earth wasn’t the money for places like West Yorkshire just given straight to Tracy Brabin or in the case of Greater Manchester given straight to Andy Burnham?”

Mr Murison, who is from Boroughbridge, added that bidding for funding also cost local authorities money.

He said:

“The issue is that it costs, the Local Government Association estimate, about £30,000 to bid. The estimate that has been given in the last few days is that it’s getting on for £25 million that has been spent bidding in these processes.

“That’s OK, I suppose, for areas that were successful… For those areas that bid and didn’t get any money, there’s areal question whether Michael Gove should be writing them a cheque because their council tax payers are worse off for having tried to secure this funding but not got it.”