THE DELAYED sale of Bracknell’s beloved Easthampstead Park Conference Centre cost the council more than a quarter of a million pounds.

Documents show the prolonged sale meant the council had to spend £260,000 more than expected on running the site before it was eventually sold to Active Hospitality.

Stuart McKellar, Director of Finance said “Due to the sale of Easthampstead Park Conference Centre being three months after the expected date, there were additional running and staffing costs incurred that we had to cover during that period.

“We also had to transfer income received in advance for weddings and events, which was due to Active Hospitality on completion of the sale.

“However, we are now receiving the full expected revenue saving and have removed the income risk for EPCC from our future budgets.”

The News reported last year that the delayed sale of the conference had cost the council £176,000 by September 2018.

But now latest budget documents for the 2018-2019 financial year indicate the council will have spent a further £84,000 because of the delay.

A Bracknell Forest Council (BFC) report, which outlined budget overspends and underspends for the current financial year, read: “The 2018-19 budget made an assumption that the transformation savings which were to be realised from the sale of the Conference Centre would mean that a budget was only required for the first 3 months of the financial year.”

But a council director told The News in September 2018 that BFC had “anticipated this pressure”.

It was announced in April 2018 that the site was set to be sold by the council and Active Hospitality was formally unveiled as its buyer just days after The News reported the £176,000 spend.

Active Hospitality paid Bracknell Forest Council £4.3m to own the site on a 999-year lease.

Bruce Cave, director of Active Hospitality, told The News in October 2018 that he believed the delay was worth it for the council.

He said: “I think the council did very well – they secured a good operator, they protected its use to be a hotel and a conference centre and they stopped there being any residential use on it.

“That’s exactly what the voter asked them to do and they did it.

“And they got a lot more money out of us all – they created a really good tension and got us all bidding above where we wanted to.

“They had to make absolutely sure that whoever they chose could deliver the scheme they’d outlined.

“They probably did better by doing this slowly and carefully.”

Councillors are set to discuss the council’s budget performance at a meeting of the environment, culture and communities overview and scrutiny panel on Tuesday, March 5.