In an anonymous-looking office in south-east London, a handful of thirtysomethings are racking their brains to come up with a sensible plan for the future use of Harrogate Convention Centre (HCC).
The exercise to “explore opportunities in the marketplace and appraise the best options for taking the venue forward” comes after North Yorkshire Council (NYC) decided last month to abandon the proposed £57 million development of HCC, citing complexities and costs.
The centre needs investment, and it currently relies on a £2.7 million subsidy. Two applications for grant funding from the government have failed, so new thinking is needed.
As the Stray Ferret revealed this week, North Yorkshire taxpayers are handing the team from London consultancy 31ten £23,000 plus VAT for the “soft market testing” project, which is due to conclude by “late spring”. So what might the consultants suggest?
A report for the council’s ruling executive that took the decision to ditch the redevelopment stated:
“Options may include, but are not limited to, alternative delivery and funding models, partnership working, alternative uses for parts of the site, and asset ownership.”
In other words the council, which is looking to make serious savings over the coming years, is open to pretty much any suggestion, so long as it sounds viable. Everything, it seems, is on the table.
In January, the Stray Ferret discovered the council had already spoken to private companies about the possibility of selling the convention centre.
Council chief executive Richard Flinton told Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce that the council wanted to “understand private sector interest in the building” although he added “that doesn’t necessarily mean the council will look to offload it”.
A more likely scenario could see parts of the site sold off, rather than the whole thing. That’s an option Simon Kent would be tempted to take. Mr Kent worked at Harrogate Convention Centre for 15 years from 2004, leaving in 2019 after more than six years as director. He told the Stray Ferret:
“The main part of the convention centre is integrated, with parts of it underground, so you couldn’t knock bits of it down. But the exhibition halls are different. If some events were moved elsewhere, those could potentially be sold and redeveloped for other uses.
“So perhaps there could be an option to move some of the events to the Great Yorkshire Showground and connect them to Harrogate via a shuttle bus. Whatever happens, we need to keep events coming to the town, even if they don’t come to Harrogate Convention Centre. From an economic point of view, the business would remain in Harrogate, so the impact would still be there.
“Clearly, the business is important to the town, so we have to be creative and make sure it stays in the town.”
The business is indeed important to the town – it’s estimated to be worth £45 million a year to the local economy – which is why the council is looking at some radical options.
Not many are as radical as the one suggested to the Stray Ferret by Andrew Williams. As North Yorkshire councillor for Ripon Minster and Moorside, he’s long been vehemently opposed to using public money to prop up the convention centre, which he believes is of no benefit to taxpayers beyond Harrogate. He told us:
“I very much welcome North Yorkshire Council’s decision not to go ahead with investing £57m – more than the original £33m cost of building it – in what I think is a white elephant. It would be very helpful to get some private equity investment in so that it wasn’t as much of a drain on public finances.”
He thinks the convention centre should put its money on a more imaginative approach. He said:
“When conventions aren’t taking place, it should be used for more leisure activities. I’ve always thought a casino would be a good idea.
“York has considerable trade in bachelor and hen weekends – go out in York on a weekend evening and it’s packed with young visitors – but Harrogate doesn’t have any of that, because there’s nothing to attract them.
“Harrogate should be marketing itself as a destination for leisure activities in a way it clearly isn’t at the moment.”
The idea of repurposing some of the site already has currency, albeit not yet in the form of casino chips. Paula Lorimer, director of the the convention centre, would like to reconfigure some of the conference rooms to create breakout space, a move she believes could bring in an extra £1 million a year.
The Stray Ferret contacted Ms Lorimer – who, with an annual salary of £121,818 was recently revealed to be one of this district’s best paid public servants – for this article many times over the course of more than a month, but she did not reply.
Paula Lorimer, director of Harrogate Convention Centre
Failing these options – selling it off, selling off parts of it, or repurposing it – there is another route the consultants could go down. Partnership working can yield benefits all round, allowing each party to play to their strengths. It’s an approach tentatively favoured by Kim Wilson, co-owner of The Camberley B&B, which is just across King’s Road from the convention centre. She said:
“Parts of the convention could possibly be run by other bodies – for example, the Royal Hall could easily be run by Harrogate Theatre – so we’ll just have to see what’s out there.
“It really comes down to what we want the convention to be. Is it a public asset with government support, or is it better as a privately-owned venture that goes out chasing business more aggressively?
“My husband thinks it should be a protected asset, but I’m less fixed in my view. If it does get a partner in, they’ll have to be very careful when they’re choosing them – it’s about getting the right fit.”
For Paula Lorimer and her team, what to do with a convention centre faced with unprecedented competition from – among others – London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Brighton and Blackpool is clearly a conundrum worth spending money to solve.
But for Simon Kent, who has been entrusted with the archives of late local historian Malcolm Neesam, it all seems quite familiar. He said:
“This isn’t the first time the convention centre has come to this point – there have been lots of exercises like this. In 1990-91, it looked at getting private-sector investment – it was the first thing the Liberal Democrats did when they got in. Then in 2000 there was another effort to get funding through Yorkshire Forward.
“People often think it all started in 1982 when the conference centre opened, but we were doing conferences and trade fairs in Harrogate as far back as the 1880s, so it was the natural thing to invest in that as the spa industry declined.
“It’s still a viable business, and people clearly still like coming to Harrogate, so it must have something. It’s just a matter of understanding what that is and capitalising on it.”
Read more:
- Exclusive: Council spent £1.9m on consultants for scrapped Harrogate Convention Centre plans
- Harrogate residents say convention centre visitors stealing parking spaces
- Council predicts positive future for Harrogate Convention Centre despite scrapping £57m redevelopment
