In February 2021, Budget Council committed more funding to support the restoration of Madeira Terrace.
The city council’s own budget commitments to Madeira Terrace show how important this heritage asset is to the city.
It was estimated in 2017 that a full restoration of the terrace (all 151 arches) in like for like construction would cost at least £24 million.
Since 2016, we’ve explored different funding sources, including:
Following unsuccessful attempts to bid for funding, we’re directly investing the council’s funds in the project.
As a council, we have a limited budget to spend on a vast range of essential services. This means we can’t spend the full estimated cost of the project in one go.
But we have been able to secure funds to help restore Madeira Terrace. We did this through various decisions at committees and at Budget Council.
After setting up the Design Team in May 2020, £650,000 of the funds were allocated to their work. This includes exploring different phasing options for the restoration and how we’ll carry it out.
In February 2020, Budget Council committed £200,000 per financial year towards restoring the Terrace.
In 2020 to 2021, £100,000 of this commitment was allocated to develop a strategic financial review and business plan.
The other £100,000 went towards preparing a masterplan for the Eastern Seafront, which will include Madeira Terrace.
From 2021 to 2022 this £200,000 was pledged annually to support a loan from the Public Works Loan board.
In 2021, Budget Council identified funding to support future borrowing of a further £3.635 million.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) could be a possibility for further funding.
We made 2 bid attempts to the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2018. Both attempts were unsuccessful.
The National Lottery said they simply don’t have enough money for all the projects that applied for funding.
The NLHF transitioned to a new Heritage strategy in 2023.
We’ll need to consider the merits of making another application in 2024, because it takes a lot of time, resource and cost to produce a bid submission. At this stage it's unclear whether Madeira Terrace would meet the NLHF criteria.
A bid to the central government Department for Communities and Local Government for £4 million to kickstart the project was unsuccessful in 2016.
In December 2023 we announced that the first phase of the restoration would cover 28 arches between the Royal Crescent steps and Concorde 2, rather than the previously planned 40. This came as a result of the increase in construction costs.
You can support the restoration by buying merchandise or making a donation.