Liverpool City Council has commissioned a report in to risks relating to their investment in to Everton’s Bramley Moore Dock stadium however they will not reveal it’s contents.
Head of Finance, Becky Hellard, who has recently resigned from her post, requested that Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) undertake a review of the risk associated with the council’s involvement in the Bramley Moore Dock scheme.
The CIPFA report has raised a number of issues and queries of the plans that will see Liverpool City Council loan £280M to pay for it’s new stadium.
The council have refused to reveal the contents of the report on the grounds that it is “commercially confidential”.
The council have reaffirmed their position that the deal will bring a net profit for the city. A spokesperson for Liverpool City Council have claimed that it is perfectly normal to seek external advice on large regeneration schemes.
However leader of the Lib Dem’s have claimed that the council are deliberately keeping the report from public view.
Cllr Richard Kemp said, “I believe that Liverpool Council are deliberately suppressing a report which raises great concerns about the viability of the EFC move to Bramley Moore Dock. When I asked a direct question about the existence of such a report my question was avoided.
However CIPFA, the highly respected centre for public finance in the U.K., has confirmed that the report exists and that it has raised a series of questions that need to be addressed.
Even if I did not know that the report raises serious questions we could assume that this is the case or the Council would have produced it for full public scrutiny.
We must also question whether or not the effective departure of our highly respected Director of Resources, Becky Hellard, days after the report arrived at the council is a coincidence or has a sinister implication.
This is without a doubt the single biggest commercial venture that the Council will ever undertake. It is vital that all Councillors and the taxpayers of Liverpool who will underwrite this debt must know all the facts about it.
That is why I challenge the Council to come clean and publish the CIPFA report so that we can have a full and frank debate about a project which will have a major impact on the Council’s finances”