Government refuses to say why council’s £20m funding bid to redevelop Harrogate Convention Centre failed

The council missed out on the funding earlier this year and it led to questions over how a planned £49m redevelopment of the ageing facility will be paid for.

The new owner of the building, North Yorkshire Council, will make a decision on whether the project goes ahead later this year.

The Government is expected to soon welcome bids for a third round of its Levelling Up Fund worth over £1bn and the council has indicated it may try to bid again.

But the public still do not know why the previous bid failed, despite the council spending £45,000 of taxpayers’ money to help draw it up, as first reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

During the first two rounds of the fund, 834 bids were submitted but only 216 were successful.

The Government scored each bid out of 100 with criteria including deliverability and the characteristics of each place.

Through two freedom of information requests, the LDRS asked the Department for Levelling Up for the full reasons why HBC’s bid was rejected, citing public interest reasons, but they were both refused.

In the latest response, the Government said it needs space to “develop ideas and reach decisions away from external interference and distraction”.

The response said: “The information you have requested relates to a live policy and disclosure of the information would erode unacceptably the space mentioned above.

"Officials and ministers must feel able to consider the information and advice before them and be able to reach objective, fully informed decisions without impediment and free from distraction that such information will be made public.

“Furthermore, the proposal submitted by the council contains sensitive commercial information, including the amount of money applied for.

"This information was submitted in expectation of confidentiality and if it were disclosed it could have an adverse impact on the commercial interests of an applicant who may wish to submit for future rounds of Government funding, providing other applicants with an unfair advantage.”

North Yorkshire Council has been approached for comment.