Why is the council still building Event Central?

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. “So what?” you may be thinking. “Hasn’t the cost of everything?” As Alan Seasman, the council’s interim head of regeneration, noted in a recent meeting, “there have been quite a few changes in the economy” since then: Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, inflation. It makes sense such a big project would cost a bit more.

Except, it’s quite a large bit more. To be exact, the budget — which had already risen by a couple million since the project was first dreamed up in 2019 — has now more than doubled since 2022, from a little under £7 million to £14.4m. An insider source familiar with the early years of the project seemed baffled, describing the new budget as “absolutely bonkers” in a chat with The Tribune. “We could build a brand new block of flats for £14m,” 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?