Brands owner slams new circuit funds

A row has broken out between the owners of racing circuits in the UK and the Welsh Assembly, backers of the ambitious plan to build a motorsport complex in South Wales at a cost of £280million where work is due to start before Christmas.

Wales: Investment on the way

Jonathan Palmer, owner of four circuits including Brands Hatch and chairman of the Association of Motor Racing Circuit Owners (AMRCO), has protested at government money being given to the project and suggests that figures for jobs created and annual attendances are unrealistic.

 It comes at a time when Mallory Park has been liquidated and Silverstone has had to sell land surrounding the circuit to a developer because of bank debt caused by its own development costs.

AMRCO is concerned about the unfair effect on competition in the market: "Wales can bid for MotoGP against Silverstone - one will have government subsidies, the other will not," explained Palmer, who also voices major doubts about the new circuit’s business model.   “It looks to us as though a circuit deep in Wales will struggle to survive. The figures produced for visitor numbers and jobs created seem astronomical given the realities of a business in which there is already overcapacity”.

Although the project is not yet fully funded, the Welsh Assembly has put in £2m and discussions are advanced with private investors, according to the Heads of the Valleys Development Company. Planning permission for the 800 acre site which will embrace a business and technology park, motocross and karting circuits and other leisure facilities has been granted by Blaenau Gwent Council.

An adviser close to the project  has been quoted as saying :"This is not just a racing circuit. It is a development in an area of high unemployment and is a major project of regeneration which is why the Welsh assembly is right behind it."

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