Speedway HQ track failure bill is £800K
OUT NATIONAL STADIUM AFTER PROBLEMS
MANCHESTER town hall faces a bill of up to £800,000 after the vision for a new National Speedway Stadium in Belle Vue went catastrophically wrong.
The council is having to bail out the project less than a year on from its launch after a spectacular falling-out with its previous partners, Belle Vue Group, which went into liquidation at the start of the year owing hundreds of thousands of pounds to the authority.
A report agreed by council bosses shows that money may now have to be written off. It also expects to spend more than £400,000 making the stadiumfit for purpose and more than £125,000 on legal and consultancy fees.
Meanwhile, a second council report seen by the M.E.N. says the use of contaminated building rubble to fill in ground underneath part of the track – which the town hall says was done without its knowledge – caused the stadium’s first meet a year ago to be abandoned amid fears it was unsafe. Belle Vue Group claim the council was fully aware of the materials used and blame the town hall for its financial losses.
According to the leaked report from last April, ‘building waste’ including large pieces of timber, plastic sheeting and ‘other contaminants’ were then discovered under the part of the track that had failed. Manchester council says it never agreed to that material, which was not specified in the original contract with builders ISG, being used – although the Belle Vue Group says town hall officials knew exactly what was going in the ground and had signed off on it several days before the meet.
Manchester council agreed in 2013 to fund the construction of a new speedway stadium for Belle Vue Aces and lease it to BV Arena Ltd, one of four firms in the Belle Vue group.
As part of that deal the town hall was to oversee the construction work. However, relations between the partners deteriorated – with BVA unable to honour a financial agreement with the town hall that should have seen significant additional investment.
In March last year, as crowds gathered for the new stadium’s first meet, test drivers declared part of the track was too soft for racing at the last minute and the event had to be abandoned.
A series of meets were then cancelled as officials scrambled to fix the track.
The stadium only reopened for the Speedway World Cup because promoters IMG agreed to take responsibility for it, according to the council. In the meantime it has had no rental payments from BVA since this time last year, meaning over £220,000 is owed.
Council leader Sir Richard Leese said a new franchisee had now been found – in the form of consortium Belle Vue Speedway 2017.
However, BVA blames the council for its financial failure. Former chief executive Dave Gordon said his firm went under because the meet was cancelled and he was unable to recover its costs.
A settlement is being negotiated between contractors ISG and the BV group’s liquidators.