Liverpool's culture party set to cost £112m

Jul 1 2008 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

Fireworks in front of St George's Hall

TODAY, Liverpool is exactly halfway through its year as European Capital of Culture. In his second special report, David Bartlett looks at the huge amount of money being spent to change perceptions

WHEN the curtain finally falls on Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, the most expensive cultural budget in the city’s history will have been spent. More than £112m to be exact.

While the figure is impressive, only around £26m will have been spent this calendar year.

The rest equates to spending since 2003 and a good portion of the money would have been spent anyway.

However, there is no doubting that Liverpool has spent a huge amount of money to make this the showcase year, splashing out on events that would never usually be funded.

A once-in-a-lifetime chance for the city to rebrand itself and sell the new emerging Liverpool to the world.

There have, however, been some high-profile problems with a budget and event programme of such magnitude.

One of the major headaches for the city was the £20m black hole in this year’s budget, a subject which fanned many a row between the Lib-Dem council and the Labour opposition and the Government.

Labour argued that the council should have saved a “war chest” to pay for the extravaganza, while the Lib- Dems insisted that they could not afford to divert money from services to help them do that.

The council failed to convince politicians at Westminster to break strict criteria to allow the city to borrow the money, or sell off assets to cover the £20m gap.