Councils waiting on Silverstone museum loan repayments

Councils who provided millions to a motorsport museum say they have yet to be repaid nearly five years on.

A number of authorities loaned money to the Silverstone Interactive Museum between 2016 and 2017, but none of them has yet been fully repaid.

The museum in Northamptonshire opened in October 2019.

Silverstone Heritage Limited, which runs the museum, said loan terms had been renegotiated in the wake of the first Covid lockdown in March 2020.

The museum was officially opened by the Duke of Sussex and Lewis Hamilton.

Aylesbury Vale District Council agreed a £2m loan in September 2016, but it has since been dissolved and replaced by Buckinghamshire Council.

Buckinghamshire Council said it expected to be typically repaid in instalments of £9,259 a month and expected the last repayment to be made by 2040, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The former South Northamptonshire Council (SNC), which is now part of West Northamptonshire Council, also loaned £3m.

It received £488,000 in May 2022 and said it expected to be fully repaid by 2028.

In 2018, auditors found there were "weaknesses" in SNC's due diligence before it agreed to make the loan.

Accountancy firm Ernst & Young found the authority carried out "no assessment of [the museum's] ability to repay the loan or of the risk of the loan not being repaid".

South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP) also loaned the museum £1m and received £171,510 in December 2022.

As of January, it was "in the process of agreeing a detailed repayment schedule" with the museum.

Another £1m loan was provided by Cherwell District Council in Oxfordshire, which said it made a £1m loan in March 2019 and also paid £10,000 in legal fees, but has had no repayments so far, it said.

It currently expected the loan to be fully repaid in March 2024.

Since the pandemic began, Cherwell had received £572,000 from the Culture Recovery Fund in 2020 and another £710,000 in emergency funding from the government in September 2021.

Silverstone Heritage Ltd, a community benefit company that runs the museum as a social enterprise, said local councils had been "extremely supportive" following the enforced closure when anti-Covid restrictions were in place.

Craig Dunkerley, museum chief executive, said its partners had "worked closely with the team here to renegotiate repayment terms all parties are happy with".

"As reported, these loans are in the process of being repaid with interest," he said.

"We have continued to see visitor numbers grow in recent months and have some exciting plans for 2023 which will firmly position the Silverstone Museum as a key tourist attraction in the area, an achievement that is recognised and valued by our partners."

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