Liverpool City Council write off £1.2m debt from pop music museum

Image source, BME

Liverpool City Council to write off over £1million in debt owed by a company that ran a museum of pop music in the Cunard building.

Music Experience Britain (MEB) owes the local authority around £1.2m but it must be canceled by the firm.

An additional £300,000 service charge will no longer be levied by British Music Experience (BME).

MEB went into voluntary liquidation in 2017 after visitor numbers and revenues were "lower than target projections".

A report to the council's cabinet said that "of mult "factors" led to a worse expected performance and non-payment of fixed rental and service charges of £1.6 million.

"Various attempts to resolve the situation over the past few years have been unsuccessful," the report adds.

Liverpool Council and BME signed a seven-year agreement with jointly purchased company MEB to operate the museum attraction and it was required to pay the council a fixed sum of £250 £000 a year.

After the MEB made an unsuccessful application in September 2017 for the council to invest a further £2m in the attraction, it went into voluntary liquidation in November 2017, leaving staff and six months worth of supplier bills unpaid, including amounts owed to the community and BME.

MEB never paid any of the fixed authority sums owed to the board and directors who dissolved the company in 2021, LDRS said.< /p>