Maybe the Salford City Mayor, Paul Dennett, knows more than the city's residents but at this week's full meeting of the Council he announced that the City of Salford Community Stadium (COSCS), a joint venture between the Council and Peel Holdings, was "actually a great success" and a "really good news story". This, just minutes before also announcing that more loans to the Stadium were imminent.
The latest accounts for COSCS Ltd for the year ending March 2019 were only released a few weeks ago and showed a loss of £1.973million, a fact relayed by Tory Councillor Jill Collinson, who asked at the Council meeting how sustainable this was.
In response, the City Mayor argued that he was reassured that, trading-wise, "it's washing its face shall we say, so operationally it's working. And when I say washing its face that's not considering repayment of principal and interest...From a repayment and interest point of view that's why the stadium company is reporting a bit of a loss..."
Almost £2million 'a bit of a loss'? Meanwhile, trading-wise, the AJ Bell Stadium, which hosts matches by Salford Red Devils and Sale Sharks amongst other events, saw its income rise by 4.38% but its match day income fall by 6.24%. Gross profit was down by over £200,000 on the previous year.
"...From what I'm seeing and what I'm looking at it is actually a great success" said Dennett "Not only is it creating jobs and opportunities in the city but from a financing point of view, in terms of the liabilities to the local authority they're coming down year on year.
"So if we look at this in the round in terms of debt to the local authority at the moment we're looking at the overall liability being in the region now of £15million and originally we borrowed twenty odd million and obviously working capital to date..." he gloated.
The accounts tell a different story, with Salford City Council owed £19.105million in loans to the Stadium, plus £6.035million in further 'development' loans (along with Peel Holdings). That's a total debt to the Council of over £25million.
However, as the Mayor pointed out, some land has recently been sold near the Stadium to Aldi, the financial receipt for which was not included in the accounts. That might have brought the £19million debt down somewhat, or as the Mayor said, "obviously making things look better". Well, it couldn't look any worse! The accounts stated that the total loans the Stadium company owed totalled £31.176million.
"I just wanted to reassure members of the Council...that we should be positive about the future direction of the Stadium and that regeneration in that part of the city, and I can corroborate all this with hard data and facts" the Mayor insisted "I actually think it's a really good news story...not only is the debt coming down but we're creating jobs we're selling land and we're moving in the right direction."
In response, Tory Councillor, Robin Garrido, asked if the City Mayor could put a figure on "how much that has cost us per person for those jobs" and argued that a £15million debt "is still an awful lot of money to most people and to many companies". He insisted that the time had come to flog the Stadium and clear the deficit.
In the midst of the Mayor's hailing of the Stadium as a "great success" and a "really good news story", he revealed that the company would be coming to the Council for more public money loans in the near future....
For a full background see previous Salford Star article – Salford Community Stadium Announces Almost £2million Loss – click here
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
(3).jpeg)
.png)
(1).JPG)
