Council leaders are being cautioned that the income target for Warrington's Time Square, the town centre's flagship regeneration project, is 'unrealistic'.
The council's 2025-26 revenue forecast position will be discussed at a cabinet meeting on Monday. Budget monitoring forecasts, including those for Time Square, have been included in a document for council members. In a section titled 'Time Square commercial', it states that the income target of £1.507 million is 'unrealistic in the current economic climate'.
It points out that the food and beverage, cinema, and leisure industries have been 'significantly impacted' by Brexit, Covid, the cost-of-living crisis, and recent increases in employment costs.
It adds that the two main tenants – The Botanist and Cineworld – are both on company voluntary arrangement-based rent reductions 'imposed on us', reducing contracted rent by over £200k per annum.
The document notes that Cineworld's contracted rent of £250,000 per annum has been reduced to £110,000 per annum, while The Botanist's contracted rent of £85,000 per annum has been cut to £20,000 per annum. Both Cineworld and The Botanist have faced well-publicised financial difficulties over the past year.
The document adds: "In addition, we suspect from recent contact, the University of Chester is likely to terminate their lease through a break clause in June 2026, which would be a loss of a further £244k pa.
The report also forecasts that expected rental income for the year 2025-26 will be in the region of £780,000.
It notes: "In addition, there is no budget provision for the landlord void costs and service charge associated with the vacant leisure units and costs across the wider estate, alongside the investigation costs associated with pop-up electrical supply, wind damage to cladding panels and cracking glass in Yum Cha unit. These costs total around £250k pa."
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