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.