Nottingham Motorpoint Arena reports £3.9m pandemic losses

The venue has been given a city council loan

Nottingham's National Ice Centre and Motorpoint Arena lost nearly £4m in a year after Covid restrictions brought shows to a halt.

The venue has published its accounts for the most recent financial year from April 2020 to March 2021.

The report says more than 100 permanent staff and 1,000 casual employees were made redundant to save money.

However, there was optimism about the future with the report stating that show bookings were "very high".

The £3.9m losses reported by Nottingham Ice Centre Limited is more than five times higher than the previous year of £718,744.

The accounts say Nottingham City Council loaned the company more than £7m, due to be repaid over 15 years starting in 2023.

They also show the company received a £1m Culture Recovery Fund grant, issued by Arts Council England, to help mitigate losses.

The national speed skating team trained at the ice centre in December

Four of the company's eight directors resigned during the auditing process - including the chairman Mich Stevenson, who left after nearly 25 years.

Going forward, the report indicated things were looking better as "ice sports participation is only marginally short of pre-Covid levels and improving".

It added: "Forthcoming arena show volumes are very high with bookings for several years ahead above normal levels."

The report stated the impact of Covid-19 had begun by the start of the financial year, with the building already closed on 1 April 2020.

"In response to the abrupt cessation of most income into the company in March 2020, extensive cost savings were implemented with most staff furloughed from April," it said.

It added a small core team, down to 19 staff after a few months, dealt with work including customer service refunds and building maintenance.

No shows took place at the arena during this financial year and this, as well as continued uncertainty, resulted in a new staffing structure including redundancies in late 2020.

The report said: "The company's business model is almost entirely dependant upon the arena events creating sufficient profits in order to meet the high fixed costs of a complex ice facility which has a rebuild value of £120m.

"The closure of the arena for 18 months has resulted in significant losses in 2020/21 and the first half of 2021/22 which have resulted in a significant debt burden for the company."