Liberty Stadium: Open book or black hole?

Swansea's Lib Dems have been reported as giving an enthusiastic welcome to news of how the details behind all government spending above a certain limit will soon be made publicly available. Does this mean that we can also all look forward to the city council's ruling administration doing likewise over the financial fog that surrounds the £33 million Liberty Stadium? Probably not.

It was revealed this time last year how the clubs and council were locked in a bitter legal wrangle over who was responsible for long-standing maintenance issues and associated running costs at the sports facility built at public expense. Swansea Stadium Management Company, formerly StadCo, and which has a 50 year lease to run the stadium is made up of the Swans, Ospreys and Swansea Council on an equal thirds basis. However, it is believed that the company has persistently failed to file accounts and that a number of stadium staff are actually council employees on ‘secondment’. No rent for using the stadium has ever been paid.

A few months later came the claim that total income from hiring out the council-owned hospitality boxes had amounted to less than £2000 since the stadium opened five years ago.

Nothing of any substance has been heard since then. It appears that the local press, who showed a brief but grudging interest, sleepy opposition parties and local councillor Rob Speht - who was supposed to be chasing missing money ear-marked for a transport plan - have all been content to see the matter effectively kicked into the long grass.

In the past, claims of 'commercial sensitivity' by council legal officers have have been enough to block enquiries and frustrate any chance of public debate. But now that a recent failed Ombudsman complaint has shown such previous advice to be flawed, or at least highly questionable, then perhaps this is one of many issues that can be now dragged out into the light - either with or without the newly re-discovered Lib Dem commitment to openness & transparency.