Majority of £9m Scarborough Alpamare loan to be written off

The developers of Alpamare do not have to repay the rest of the loan, the council said

Most of a £9m loan given to the developers of a Scarborough water park will not have to be repaid, a council has confirmed.

Benchmark Leisure Ltd, the operators of Alpamare, borrowed the money from Scarborough Borough Council in 2013.

However, in October the firm went into administration still owing £7.8m.

North Yorkshire Council, which took over from Scarborough Borough Council last year, has said there would be "no further payments".

Alpamare opened in Scarborough's North Bay in 2016 with the help of the £9m bail-out loan from the now-defunct borough council.

That council was among eight which were abolished on 31 March 2023 to make way for the new North Yorkshire Council.

The new authority confirmed "there will be no further payments" against the remaining millions of pounds of taxpayer funds loaned to Benchmark Leisure Ltd.

North Yorkshire Council added that its contractors were now assessing the Alpamare site for future use after it took control when Benchmark went into administration.

Questions about the millions of pounds of taxpayer money loaned to Benchmark led North Yorkshire Council to launch an investigation in November, which the authority said was now "progressing well".

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, investigators led by the council's internal auditor had been speaking to "a number of councillors and officers", but said it was "too early to give any outcome of this investigation".

North Yorkshire Council said it hoped the park could reopen later this year.

"[We] hope measures will be in place to open the facility in time for the main summer tourism season this year," a spokesperson added.