Bristol Beacon boss hopeful venue will open in autumn

The boss of the charity that runs the Bristol Beacon is "pretty confident" the venue will reopen in the autumn.

Bristol City Council approved an extra £25m for refurbishment on Tuesday, bringing the total cost to £132m.

The original budget for the music venue, closed since 2018, was £48m, but a watchdog said the council had "underestimated" the scale of the work.

"There's never complete certainty in a building project," said Louise Mitchell, of Bristol Music Trust.

"It's not straightforward but we've got a fabulous team working on it and I'm pretty confident we'll be able to deliver the goods."

The council has said the spiralling cost has been down to the impact of inflation and external influences on the budget.

Issues with the structure of the building have also contributed to the work falling behind schedule, with a projected re-opening date now 30 November.

However, council papers from Tuesday's meeting said timescales "should be treated with caution" and changes in key dates are "highly likely due to numerous external factors".

"We're working towards opening in autumn of this year so [the meeting] was a really good forward move in making Bristol a really good music city," said Ms Mitchell, chief executive of the music trust.

"There are so many different factors. It's been a really challenging environment... arts and construction projects across the country are facing the same challenges. It's just an unfortunate set of circumstances."

The council said it had provided £10m of funding to the trust since it began operating the venue on a peppercorn rent in 2011 - but that funding will be withdrawn after the work is complete and the lease would be renegotiated.

Ms Mitchell said she understood the reasons for the decision.

"I completely understand. We're all in this together. Economic times are really difficult for everybody and we need to work together," she said.

"We bring a lot more to Bristol than just running the building. We want to make the strongest contribution we can to making Bristol a thriving city."

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