Portrush: Dunluce Centre 'not sold to highest bidder'

A former tourist attraction in Portrush is being sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds fewer than what had been offered for it.

BBC News NI understands a hotel developer offered £1.5m for the Dunluce Centre site, £290,000 more than the winning bidder.

The council said the developer was unable to provide proof of funding within the set timeframe.

This was required under the bidding process rules.

Elected representatives were not made aware of the offer, a councillor said.

"This was a substantially higher bid that involved hundreds of thousands of pounds," said Padraig McShane, who sits on Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council as an independent representative.

"Given the significance of the gap between the winning bid and the £1.5m bid, councillors should have been fully informed."

Mr McShane believes officers were potentially "making decisions of a magnitude that should have been taken by councillors" and that they "could be seen as being too involved in the process".

But the council said this was "wholly unsubstantiated and unevidenced".

In a statement to the BBC late on Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Richard Holmes said: "Regrettably, despite the council providing multiple extensions, and issuing multiple reminders, after 14 weeks the information requested had not been provided. Consequently, this bidder voluntarily withdrew from the process."

However the hotel developer which made the unsuccessful bid said this was "fundamentally untrue".

The hotel developer planned to turn the site into a four-star hotel, with 120 bedrooms, a spa and leisure facilities.

If successful in purchasing the site, developers intended to call the £30m hotel The Lighthouse.

Investors also had plans to market it in the US and Canada, particularly to people interested in travelling to Northern Ireland to play golf.

They had originally supplied a signed letter from an investor pledging $50m (£37m) to purchase and redevelop the site.

They later requested extra time to provide proof of funds due to the pandemic and their investors' banks being overseas.

The developers told BBC News NI that officials then asked for full audited accounts, which they felt was "an unusual and impossible request".

Commercial property lawyer Mark Tinman told BBC News NI that in his experience a request for audited accounts would be "highly unusual".

"I don't know whether the request was made through ignorance or a lack of understanding.

"If they were trying to suggest the investor should instigate an audit specifically… to show the council that the investors' accounts were in order, that would take a number of months to complete.

"No sensible investor could be expected to overcome that obstacle in order to stay in the game without any certainty as to the outcome."

Mr McShane said: "The goalposts essentially had been moved by council.

"We're dealing with an international company; their records would be absolutely massive and for us to ask for them records, we would have had to have given them more time.

"The decision to allow more time, given its magnitude, should have been made by the full council and not officers overseeing the bidding process," he added.

BBC News NI asked the council if officials requested audited accounts and whether the same request was made of all bidders.

A council spokesperson said a specialist panel was appointed to "ensure equal treatment and fairness to all bidders" and that it sought external procurement legal advice during the process.

It said that criteria "included a requirement for satisfactory evidence as to proof of funding capability".

"Proof of funding capability to satisfy the selection criteria was not provided by the bidder within the specified timeframe, and subsequently the bidder acknowledged this and withdrew."

The council added that "the assessment process was also reported back to the full council via the relevant committee".

North Antrim assembly member Jim Allister has also written to the council about the sale.

"It's a fundamental and statutory obligation of any council in disposing of public assets to maximise the return to the ratepayers, and therefore any suggestion that is not being done is very concerning," the TUV leader said.

"If we are in a situation where there was a significant higher bid rejected by officials within the absence of knowledge of the councillors, then if I was a councillor in that locality, I would have a lot of very pressing questions.

"If the officials were minded to depart from the principle that you seek the highest possible return for a public asset, then of course that should have been brought, I think, to the council."

The Dunluce Centre site is now in the process of being sold to a businessman from County Donegal for £1.21m.

The winning bidder's plans are for a family entertainment complex.

This article was updated on 25 April 2022.