After issuing Moirai with a court order to strip them of the North Star development, Swindon Council has now got cold feet and have allowed Moirai more time to kickstart the North Star Leisure development, including a snow dome.
A company called Seven Capital Invesments Ltd has asked Swindon Council to stall on breaking their development agreement with Moirai, as they intend to takeover Moirai however no indication has been given whether they are fully committed to the development.
Swindon Council agreed to lease to Moirai the Oasis and the lucrative Clare’s site back in 2012 and as early as 2014 it was clear Moirai were failing to meet their development obligations after bankrupting their shell company, despite owing £600K to creditors including Swindon businesses.
The Swindon Labour Group have called on Moirai to be stripped of developing the Oasis and North Star site as early as 2014, after Moirai had failed to meet their development obligations and ripped off local businesses through bankrupting a shell company. Until December 2016, the Tory administration that runs Swindon Council had backed Moirai but last month issued them a notice to terminate their development agreement.
The Labour Group Leader, Councillor Jim Grant, said:
"Once again, the council promised and failed to deliver. Instead of crowing about resurrecting this deal, Councillor Perkins should be apologising to local businesses who have not received money owed to them by Moirai.
The fact that Moirai have had to find another company to fund the project shows that they had no financial backing in the first place, which brings in to question the Council’s ability to carry out a thorough due diligence in advance of agreeing these type of contracts. We can only hope that they have learnt their lessons and this is not going to result in yet another abject failure to deliver on behalf of the people of Swindon.
If Labour had been running the Council in 2014, we would have cancelled all the contracts with Moirai, sought a credible partner to deliver the project and the people of Swindon could well have been enjoying a snow dome and other high quality leisure facilities.
It still remains to be seen if Seven Capital are fully committed the vision for North Star to become a regional leisure hub with a snowdome or that they would just like to hold some profitable land to use for their own devices.”