Rees justifies council paying almost £1/4m in one year to arena consultant

Bristol’s mayor has justified paying almost £240,000 for a consultant, saying it was necessary to get major infrastructure projects off the ground.

Nigel Greenhalgh was one of the key authors of a report advising Bristol City Council to scrap plans to build the city’s long-awaited arena near Temple Meads.

The Redland-based consultant was also responsible for overseeing the early stages of big developments in his role as an interim project manager of growth and regeneration.

He was paid £239,788 by the council in the 12-month period from March 2018 for this work, according to the recently-published statement of accounts.

His remuneration was second only to Colin Molton, who held the post of executive director of growth and regeneration at the council on an interim basis and received £274,503 between April 2018 to March 2019.

Watch Rees answer Bristol24/7’s questions about Greenhalgh at his most recent press conference:

Greenhalgh, who is no longer working for the city council, is the director of elev8, a company based on Durdham Park “specialising in the strategic development and delivery of major projects”.

In August 2018, Bristol24/7 revealed that prior to his work for Bristol City Council, Greenhalgh was previously employed to work on development of the former Filton Airfield site owned by YTL, the Malaysian firm who own Brabazon Hangars – now granted planning permission to build an arena there.

In 2018, Bristol City Council passed a budget with £34.5m of ‘savings’ and in 2017 announced more than £100m would have to be cut from services across the city due to the austerity imposed by central government. No further cuts were made in 2019 or 2020.

Mayor Marvin Rees admitted the figures revealed in the statement of accounts for the year ending March 2019 were “challenging” but said paying almost one quarter of a million pounds to Greenhalgh was necessary in order to get the major infrastructure projects that Bristol badly needs off the ground.

“I understand when people look at the numbers and I do too, it’s not a world I’ve lived in,” said Rees, in response to Bristol24/7’s question.

“But if you add up the developments that are in play – we’ve got a £500m university campus behind the train station, we’ve got Temple Meads we want to redevelop, that’s £150 to £200m, we’ve got the energy scheme on Temple Island that’s £350m plus, we are bringing forward the wider plans for St Philip’s Marsh – begin to add up the developmental value of those sites.

“Then obviously what we’re looking at with Western Gateway and work around flood defences, and the mass transit system, you are talking about billion billions of pounds of regeneration and for the confidence of our partners and investors, that is work that needs expertise and that does expertise not come cheap, much as I would like it to.”

Rees also said the figure needs to be taken in context as Greenhalgh’s employment as an interim adviser meant the council was not obliged to pay any holiday or sick pay.

The mayor said we need to look at cities such as Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester – which he said Bristol has “looked at with envy because they have got stuff done” and how much it has cost them to complete major infrastructure projects.

A Freedom of Information request in 2019 revealed that Cardiff Council employed 29 lawyers and 37 planners, in comparison to Bristol City Council’s 38.8 lawyers and 39.8 planners.

Rees added: “If I was managing a football team, I could spend my time saying it’s absurd saying how much we pay professional football players and I could make a commitment to paying League Two wages but then I’d get a League Two team.

“If you want to be in the Premiership, unfortunately, as horrific as these numbers sound, you have to work with it.

“You can try and get that stuff done for the good of the city or you can try and take on the wider system. Now we’re trying to take on both at the same time but in the meantime people in Bristol need us to build the houses, we need the infrastructure, we need the transport, we need the new university campus as a catalyst for development.

“The numbers are challenging, but unfortunately it’s the world we’re in rather than the world we would like it to be and it’s what we have to do to get stuff done.”

Main image: LinkedIn / Bristol City Council

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