South Wales Evening Post - 11 November 2005
A £25,000 sweetener was used in the deal to find someone to take on the Pool Sanctuary site in Swansea, the Post can reveal today.
Documents seen by the Post show that Swansea Council agreed a six-month rent-free period for the company taking on the £50,000-a-year lease for The Kingsway site. This, it says is so that Dutchy's Entertainment, the company which plans to open the former pool hall as a nightclub, can refit the property to meet its needs.
Club bosses are planning to open the doors next month, although legal agreements have yet to be completed.
Details of the deal have been revealed in a confidential council report seen by the Post.
Swansea Council has been keen to re-let the property since abandoning plans to use it as an Activa gym.
The pool hall was leased by the former Labour-controlled council in May 2004, but dropped two months later by the new Lib Dem-led coalition, being labelled unsuitable.
An investigation into the deal - which saw the council pay more than £62,700 for an empty building for 12 months - is now underway.
Dutchy's Entertainment now plans to open the pool hall as Klub Kaos next month.
The report says that Netech Computing is underwriting the lease to the nightclub.
The computer company is listed as being based at 26 Kelvedon Drive in Ipswich - a residential address of Lee Merritt and family - rather than a financial backer.
A call to the company redirects you to SMS Direct - a bulk text messaging company.The council is also taking the unusual step of seeking a guarantor for the deal.
The Post asked the council about the unusual move, the reliability of the backers Netech and the decision to pay the company's £25,000 rent for six months.
A spokesman at Swansea Council said: "Following a commercially confidential report to cabinet, officers were authorised to proceed with agreeing a sub-lease on the Pool Sanctuary with a preferred bidder.
"The property has been widely marketed by Poolman Harlow on behalf of the council, and the council is now completing the legal agreements with a company that Poolman Harlow have recommended to us.
"The documentation will contain all reasonable financial protections for the council."
