Last month, councillors were told that the price tag for Event Central, the new venue the council is building on Fargate, has gone up a bit since the estimates produced in 2022. \u201cSo what?\u201d you may be thinking. \u201cHasn\u2019t the cost of everything?\u201d As Alan Seasman, the council\u2019s interim head of regeneration, noted in a recent meeting, \u201cthere have been quite a few changes in the economy\u201d since then: Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, inflation. It makes sense such a big project would cost a bit more.<\/p>\n
Except, it\u2019s quite a large bit more. To be exact, the budget \u2014 which had already risen by a couple million since the project was first dreamed up in 2019 \u2014 has now more than doubled since 2022, from a little under \u00a37 million to \u00a314.4m. An insider source familiar with the early years of the project seemed baffled, describing the new budget as \u201cabsolutely bonkers\u201d in a chat with The Tribune. \u201cWe could build a brand new block of flats for \u00a314m,\u201d they said, whereas Event Central will be located in an existing building, the former Clinton Cards shop opposite Marks & Spencer. Despite this, at the conclusion of an emergency meeting about the project last week, councillors voted unanimously to forge ahead. What changed their mind?<\/p>\n
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