Government to review £900K Eden Project Morecambe land deal

A £900,000 land deal between Lancaster City Council and the Eden Project is set to come under government scrutiny.

The council, owners of the Morecambe Promenade site where a £100m Eden Project attraction is due to be built, has agreed to pay Eden £900,000 - the value of the land.

As a mandatory requirement because these are public funds, they have asked the Government to check if a £50.9m grant to be paid to Eden - which includes £50m of government funding as well as the £900K - complies with the law.

A report will be compiled with a ruling within 30 working days.

Eden said they plan to begin work on building the attraction by the end of 2024, with a view to opening in 2026.

In 2021, the council agreed a deal with the Eden Project, who run a major eco-attraction in Cornwall, for the former Bubbles/Dome/Super Swimming Stadium site.

As landowners, they agreed to transfer the site to Eden subject to them achieving planning permission and funding for the planned attraction.

Planning permission was granted in January 2022, and £50m of government funding, half the overall cost, was awarded in January 2023, with the council as the accountable body.

The Eden team intends to find the rest of the money from other sources.

As part of the agreement between the council and Eden, as the project becomes established and visitor numbers reach an agreed level, a percentage of each ticket sold will be paid into a trust fund which will be used to benefit the local community.

Eden have also committed to a social value package, which will see locally sourced supplies and services being used, and local employment and training opportunities being provided.

A Competition and Markets Authority report, published on the Government website this week, said: "The Subsidy Advice Unit (SAU) has accepted a request for a report from Lancaster City Council (LCC) concerning a proposed subsidy for Eden Project Morecambe. This request relates to a Subsidy of Particular Interest.

"The SAU will prepare a report, which will provide an evaluation of LCC’s assessment of whether the subsidy complies with the subsidy control requirements (Assessment of Compliance). The SAU will complete its report within 30 working days.

"LCC is proposing to award a subsidy to support the construction of Eden Project Morecambe (EPM), a new transformational visitor attraction in the North of England. The subsidy will enable the regeneration of a derelict site on Morecambe’s seafront, formerly the Morecambe Super Swimming Stadium, into a new nationally significant cultural and tourism destination featuring spectacular inter-connecting gardens and shell-like pavilions curated with horticulture, art, and exhibits.

"The subsidy is designed to address significant deprivation issues in Morecambe, which like many other seaside towns has faced considerable socio-economic challenges over recent decades. Anticipated benefits of the subsidy award include directly creating 274 jobs, and indirectly creating a further 1,083 jobs in the wider economy through visitor expenditure. EPM provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address this decline and deliver permanent change.

"The subsidy will be by way of a grant to a special purpose vehicle owned by Eden Project International (EPI). The Eden Trust (parent company) operates as a social enterprise and educational charity with a mission to connect people with the natural world, with a particular focus on wonder, entertainment, and health and wellbeing. The project will also enable collaboration between Eden and Lancaster University resulting in 100 research and development projects with local and regional businesses.

"The overall cost of this initial phase of development is estimated to be £100.9m. LCC intend to award a grant of £50.9m to EPI. This includes £50m which LCC have provisionally secured through the Government’s Levelling Up Fund which is administered by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities and £900,000 related to the value of the land for the project being sold by LCC at a peppercorn to EPI. The remaining funding will be obtained from a mix of private sources including debt and philanthropy. The project costs include significant construction expenditure and allowance for fit-out.

"The subsidy award will be governed by a Grant Funding Agreement (GFA) between LCC and EPI. The GFA will be prescriptive about the use of the subsidy, and the achievement of outputs and outcomes presented in the business case will be closely monitored during delivery. The GFA will include appropriate clawback provisions so that key assumptions underpinning the value of the subsidy award can be reviewed after a successful period of operation.

"The land transfer and the award of Levelling Up Fund will be spent by 31st March 2026."

A Lancaster City Council spokesperson said: “Following the Government’s announcement of the successful Levelling Up Fund investment for Eden Project Morecambe, Lancaster City Council (as the accountable body) has been required to complete a subsidy control assessment and refer this to the Subsidy Advice Unit (SAU). This is a mandatory procedure under the Subsidy Control Act to set out why public funds are required as part of the funding package.

“One of the matters covered by the subsidy control assessment is the land on which Eden Project Morecambe will be built, which is valued at £900,000. In August 2021 the city council agreed to transfer the land to Eden as its contribution to the project, and this is due to take place in 2024.

“The SAU, which sits within the Competition and Markets Authority, has registered the submission and will provide its report by the end of January 2024.”

Meanwhile, the leader of Lancaster City Council has spoken about "positive news" for the project, during a meeting at Morecambe Town Hall.

Councillor Phillip Black, speaking in the Lancaster City Council chamber on Wednesday, said that a separate Government review into the project had been completed.

"Due to the turbulent economic situation, the Government made it a requirement to conduct an impact review to show that the project could still be delivered on budget despite inflated costs," said Councillor Black.

"This review found that the Eden Project could still be delivered with only some minor changes to the design and it also demonstrated that the programme to fully open by spring 2027 (could) still be met.

"All round some positive news on the Eden front."

The proposed £100m Eden Project Morecambe is earmarked for 4.8 hectares of land on the central promenade in Morecambe, near the Midland hotel. See part of the planned site below.

The mixed-use complex will be housed in four shell-like domes and will combine indoor and outdoor attractions, themed around Morecambe Bay.

The facility is set to include plants, art and interactive exhibits, a concert area for live music events, three cafe/restaurants and a visitor centre.

It has been estimated that the Eden Project Morecambe would pull 740,000 visitors annually, as well as providing around 300 high-quality green jobs, plus more than 1,000 additional new jobs supported in the region.

It was announced in January that Eden Project Morecambe was one of more than 100 projects in total to receive a share of £2.1bn from round two of the government’s flagship Levelling Up fund.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Morecambe as part of the official announcement of the £50m funding.