Further details released about city’s new Skyline leisure attraction
Richard Youle Local Democracy Reporter
More details about a planned £10.2m investment by Swansea Council in a new leisure attraction on Kilvey Hill have been disclosed.
The council’s cabinet has approved funding for the Swansea Skyline project at various stages, with conditions, and expects it to be repaid. The proposed investment has risen and is now up to £10.2m following a cabinet decision last July.
The council hopes the private sector scheme will create many jobs, including a new ranger post, open up Kilvey Hill to more people, and give tourists another reason to visit Swansea.
New Zealand company Skyline Enterprises has planning approval for Swansea Skyline which will consist of a gondola lift rising from the Hafod-Morfa Copperworks area to the top of the hill, downhill karting, a sky swing, walking and mountain biking trails, a restaurant, and children’s playground.
Ben Houghton, a campaigner who has raised a number of concerns about the project, asked about the funding increase in one of several written questions to which council leader Rob Stewart has replied.
Cllr Stewart’s written response said the increased financial support by the council was due to higher-than-anticipated land assembly costs, extra road and access work and “the capitalisation of necessary council project management and staffing costs”.
He added it had been approved through formal governance processes and supported by independent professional advice. Just under £8m of the £10.2m investment is to come from council borrowing.
The Swansea Labour leader was asked what the worst-case scenario was in terms of clawing back its investment if the project didn’t proceed to which he replied there were too many variables as it was in its infancy. And there is no suggestion of it not going ahead.
Referring more generally to how the £10.2m of grants and loans would be repaid by Skyline Enterprises he said: “Advances to Skyline by way of loan are expected to be fully repaid. Further future reimbursements to the council will be partly based on financial performance in practice.”
Questioned about the wisdom of committing funding when aspects of the project needed finalising Cllr Stewart said the council did not consider it unwise. “The council’s financial support and land arrangements are governed by legally-binding agreements designed to protect the council’s interests with further commitments contingent on the satisfaction of conditions and approvals,” he said.
Cllr Stewart said the authority was also working with a Kilvey Hill volunteer group on a new management agreement following the return of land previously overseen by Natural Resources Wales. Ongoing management of the hill required funding, he said, for rights of way management, scrub control, fire-break maintenance, and native tree planting.
He added: “Alongside this the Skyline project is supporting improvements to tracks, trails and access, including funding towards a dedicated Kilvey Hill ranger post, with separate capital funding used to deliver physical improvements outside the Skyline scheme.” He said Skyline Enterprises would manage and maintain all paths within its lease area.
Cllr Stewart added £20m-plus of funding earmarked for upgrades of the nearby Hafod-Morfa Copperworks area across the River Tawe wasn’t linked to Skyline Swansea. No changes in scope to these upgrades, he said, had been made in relation to Skyline.
Representatives from the New Zealand company, which runs leisure attractions in other parts of the world, first visited Swansea in 2017 looking for potential new sites. Its application for the Swansea project was approved by the council’s planning committee in March last year.
Construction and then tree planting and meadow and wetland habitat creation will follow enabling works and the aim is for the the attraction to open in late 2028.
Cllr Stewart said at a budget meeting in March that Skyline Enterprises was committing nearly £50m to the Swansea project. The Welsh Government is investing around £4m.
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This has been mentioned many times over the years. I can recall those even suggesting building a huge Welsh dragon on Kilvey Hill, even a statue of a Viking king Sweyn Forkbeard who allegedly founded the trading post, which is unlikely in my eyes as Viking artifacts in the are found are far and few, as Anglo-Norman cartographers named many islands off Wales with Norse names even though there were native names present for millennia. See, to create tourism and attract investment into any town or city, sometimes you have to think outside the box, but seeing Swansea council have… Read more »
This scheme has been rail-roaded through from the beginning by Swansea council against overwhelming public opposition. They are destroying a natural habitat for many rare species and ignoring the designated quiet area status of the only real green space on the East Side of the city. If it’s not profitable we pay and if it is the profits go to the off-shore tax havens where Skyline operate. Already convicted of causing a landslip in New Zealand and not implementing Anti Money laundering procedures in their casinos they are clearly not to be trusted especially given that the land contains vast… Read more »
Never heard anyone call New Zealand a tax haven before. The real exploiter is Whitehall who’ll extract far more in VAT than those “greedy” Kiwis will ever see.
They operate in Malta to get round gambling legislation and yes all the profits and taxes to go out of Swansea and we’ll be left with low paid seasonal jobs. If the council had obtained lottery funding to sustainably develop the Hill we would have a beautiful, natural asset for future generations like they have in the West of the city with Singleton Park, Clyne Gardens and Penllergaer Woods. Cardiff get over twice as much lottery funding per head than Swansea and guess who gets over ten times – Westminster. Wake up Wales and start reporting the facts Richard not… Read more »