Brighton i360 £51m debt written off to secure sale

Councillors have agreed to sell the i360 viewing pod in Brighton to a mystery buyer

Councillors have agreed to sell the i360 viewing pod in Brighton to a mystery buyer.

The sale includes writing off the £51m debt built up by Brighton i360 Ltd which called in administrators in November, some of which the council will now repay to the government.

Labour cabinet members also called for an independent inquiry to learn lessons from the decision taken by Green Party leaders in 2014 to take out a government loan to support the company.

A Green Party councillor said other parties had supported that decision at the time.

Brighton & Hove City Council leader Bella Sankey said it was "heartbreaking and genuinely sickening" that public money spent to repay the debt will be "taken from the mouths and pockets" of children and families made homeless in the city.

The council still owes £32 million of the government loan, or about £2.2 million a year over the next 16 years.

Less than a month after it was revealed Brighton i360 Ltd had appointed administrators, the tourist attraction closed suddenly making all of its 109 staff redundant the week before Christmas.

Councillor Sankey said selling to a new buyer without the associated debt was the "least worst option" but she shared residents' anger over the situation.

She said: "If the i360 can operate again then it can help bring in business rates.

"And if we proceed with the recommended buyer that has come forward, the city council will get a small share of future revenues."

'Insane council decision'

Labour cabinet members also agreed that securing a future for the i360 was important to support local seafront businesses that surround the viewing tower, which attracted 200,000 visitors a year.

Councillor Birgit Miller said that the i360 could not be left to decay on the seafront because it would become dangerous and would require even more money to be pumped into it.

She said: "If one was writing a satire of insane council decisions, this would be used as the sort of a council completely losing the plot."

Earlier, Green Party councillor Ollie Sykes told Radio Sussex other councils around the country had made similar ill-fated investments in the same period and insisted councillors from other parties had supported the 2014 decision.

Brighton and Hove's Green Party convenor, Steve Davis, said previously that the i360 has brought "a huge amount of regeneration for a long-neglected part of the city".

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