Brighton i360 owner to miss loan repayment

The leader of Brighton & Hove City, Bella Sankey, said Brighton i360 Ltd owed the authority £44m

The owner of the Brighton i360 has said it will not be able to make a six-monthly loan repayment due by the end of December.

This will be the second year in a row the seafront tourist attraction’s owner has missed the payment to Brighton & Hove City Council.

Brighton i360 Ltd has apologised to the authority and cited the impact of inflation, the cost of living, bad weather and rail strikes on visitor numbers.

On 14 December, council leader Bella Sankey said public money should never have been used to support the project.

Ms Sankey said the company had paid £250,000 towards this year's debt but the annual total should be £1.49m, with payments due each June and December.

The i360 has repaid £5.8m but, under its original repayment schedule, had been due to pay almost £18m by September 2023.

She said overall the company owed the authority £44m, including interest on the original loan, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

In 2014, the city council agreed to lend £36.2m to Brighton i360 Ltd to fund the 531ft (162m) tower - money which came from the government's Public Works Loan Board.

Ms Sankey, who leads the council's Labour group, described the decision by Green and Conservative councillors as "unforgivable".

The tower's operators said visitor numbers had not recovered to pre-pandemic levels

Jacob Taylor, deputy council leader, said the £2m the authority put aside annually to service the loan was adding to pressures on its finances.

He added residents would be "rightly angry and annoyed" with the previous administration for approving the loan.

In a statement issued to the BBC, Julia Barfield, who chairs Brighton i360 Ltd, said repaying the loan had always been a "top priority".

“There is still a 16% drop in visitor attendance compared with pre-pandemic times," she added.

She said the company had worked on improving the business.