Shopping centre lost nearly £3m
THE strain on Sefton Council’s budget has increased with the news that a Merseyside shopping centre lost nearly £3m during the pandemic.
The council-owned Strand shopping centre in Bootle recorded losses of £2.7m between April 2020 and March 2021.
However, this figure is at the lower end of the losses feared by the council, which even in February this year was predicting losses of between £2.6m and £3.1m.
This is the first year The Strand has actually lost money since the council bought the shopping centre for around £32.5m in 2017.
But while The Strand returned £1m for the council in its first year, profits fell sharply in subsequent years reaching just £30,000 in the year before the pandemic.
The shopping centre’s losses are also set to continue. In a business plan approved by Sefton’s cabinet last month, consultants forecast that The Strand would lose £3.6m over the next three years.
These continued losses would make it difficult for the council to meet its promise that The Strand will not cost Sefton Council tax payers a penny.
The local authority funded its purchase of The Strand with a loan from central government, expecting to be able to use the profits from the shopping centre to pay back the loan. However, that money will now have to come from other sources for at least the next few years, a fact likely to draw criticism from Conservative councillors who have repeatedly questioned the reasons for purchasing
The Strand. The council will also hope its plans to create a canalside market next to The Strand and refurbish the shopping centre itself will bring in more customers and limit the scale of future losses.
The business plan approved last month indicates that The Strand will move away from being purely a shopping centre, given the decline of the retail sector even before Covid.
It suggests reconfiguring the Strand with an “open plan design” and “reduced retail footprint”, making it “a desirable location for residential, education and business uses by introducing a variety of new offerings including leisure, culture, restaurants, health and community activities and public space”.
The council hopes to take advantage of the new Everton stadium at Bramley Moore Dock, while also using the site of the former Post Office building next door to the Strand to create a canalside street food market.
The business plan adds that Sefton intends to “use the role as landlord and local authority to catalyse an exciting development opportunity for The Strand and the wider community. This was the original premise of the acquisition”.