A SWANSEA councillor has questioned whether a potential £8.1 million investment by the authority in a major leisure attraction on Kilvey Hill was the right priority.
Cllr Stuart Rice tabled an amendment at a council budget meeting which called for the proposed investment over two years to be removed from the council’s capital spending plans.
The Uplands Party councillor put forward a similar amendment at last year’s budget meeting regarding a proposed £4.1 million investment in the Kilvey Hill project but it was voted down, as was the case this time round.
A company called Skyline Enterprises was given planning permission this week for a gondola lift from the Landore park and ride site, across the River Tawe and up Kilvey Hill to a station at the top leading to a food hall and outdoor terrace. At or near the top of the hill would be a sky swing attached to three towers, a zipline sending riders out on a 1km loop, and two luge tracks and a linking track. There would also be mountain bike routes, walking trails, a play area, picnic benches, a new bridleway, new planting and landscaped areas.
The Welsh Government has received a “call-in” request regarding the application and said the request was still under consideration. Although the council’s planning committee approved the application, the Welsh Government said it didn’t officially have permission until a decision notice was issued.
Cllr Rice said it wasn’t clear to him what guarantees there were of the proposed £8.1 million being repaid to the council, and felt the money could be better spent on other schemes although he didn’t name them. “Is it really the right priority,” he said. “Is it really what we want to spend £8 million on?”
The council’s finance director, Ben Smith, said he expected the investment – to be funded via unsupported borrowing – would be fully repaid over time.
Council leader Rob Stewart said he had to be careful how much he could divulge, but said the authority’s planned expenditure was not a “one-way investment or a grant” and that it was expected to be repaid over a 15-year period.
The Swansea Labour leader also said the council regularly co-invested in projects. “It is not something unique and new,” he said.
Cllr Stewart said the leisure project would create more than 100 jobs when operational and 300-plus during construction. New Zealand-based Skyline Enterprises runs several similar attractions around the world. Cllr Stewart said public access to Kilvey Hill would improve as a result and that there would be biodiversity and ecology benefits, plus annual visitor numbers of around 450,000 and an estimated £84 million boost for the local economy. He described the amendment as “spiteful”.
“I know the Uplands Party pride themselves on being a very local party but I do wish they would look beyond their (Uplands) ward boundaries,” he said.
Cllr Stewart said the money to fund much of the Labour administration’s “very ambitious” capital spending programme from 2024-25 to 2029-30 had been borrowed at very low interest rates. Removing the planned £8.1 million Skyline investment from the programme would, he said, affect confidence that “Swansea can do big things”.
Liberal Democrat councillor Peter Black urged the Labour cabinet to closely scrutinise Skyline Enteprises’ business plan. Referring to the visitor number forecast, he said: “What happens if you don’t get these visitors? What happens then?”
Cllr Stewart pointed out that the Welsh Government, which has offered a £4 million subsidy for the project, had gone through the business case.
Conservative councillor Angela O’Connor said Cllr Rice had been accused of being spiteful when it was the democratic right of councillors to voice their opinions.
The capital budget has also earmarked major investment in new or upgraded schools over the next five years, with Bishop Vaughan Catholic School, Morriston, Gowerton Comprehensive School, and Portmead and Blaenymaes primary schools among the beneficiaries.
Meanwhile funding is being allocated to turn Castle Square into a more welcoming, green space with two new commercial units. Cllr Stewart said work would start there in the next three to four weeks.
He said the council’s new central hub on the corner of Oxford Street and Princess Way – called Y Storfa – should open in October this year, while the formal opening of a new office block on The Kingsway, funded in the main by the council, was expected to be in May.
