Breakdown of costs for failed Denbighshire Leisure sale

Rhyl Journal

a day ago

At a behind-closed-doors meeting on March 26, council members voted 25–18 in favour of selling DLL to the private sector.
DLL was in the process of being sold to Merseyside-based private equity firm River Capital for £1.5 million, but on April 30, it was confirmed that the investor had pulled out.
Denbighshire Council spent £62,000 on 'independent advice' relating to the failed sale of DLL.
A FOI response has now revealed a detailed breakdown of those costs:
Total: £62,000
The FOI also revealed internal project management costs, recorded from September to March, totalling £18,000. These costs, it was noted, would have been incurred regardless of the sale outcome.
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Staff from Legal, Human Resources, and Finance also contributed time to the project, but the council said it did not hold a record of their specific hours.
An FOI statement said: "Although the proposal that generated this advice will not now proceed, much of that advice will be relevant to alternative models for the company and is not therefore an abortive cost.
"It should also be noted that this advice was sought in anticipation of a significant capital receipt of £1.5 million to be received by the Council for the sale of the shares and the revised contractual relationship would not only have prevented existing costs from increasing, but would result in the fee paid by the Council for the provision of leisure services reducing in each year of its operation over a ten year period by 10 per cent.
"This 10 per cent reduction in year two would be £152,000 increasing cumulatively to a reduction of £930,000 by year 10."