Edinburgh councillors approve £1.7m funding for Tour de France race

Funding for the Tour de France has been approved by Edinburgh councillors, after a senior council officer faced questions.

In response to questioning in a council committee, the city’s chief executive, Paul Lawrence, said not seeking approval from councillors to set aside £1.7m for the race was “inappropriate and should have happened.”

Last Wednesday, city councillors got a memo saying that the leaders of the city’s political groups had agreed in October to set aside the funds for the race.

But at last Thursday’s full council meeting, several group leaders said no such decision was made, and that the October meeting was limited to providing them information.

At the time, SNP group leader Simita Kumar said: “Group leaders were happy for officers to explore this with a decision to rightfully take place in an executive committee.

“There was no agreement from group leaders to authorise any funding – we simply do not have the power to do so within this forum.

“The governance of this decision has been wholly absent, especially when there has been adequate time to bring this decision to committee.”

At the Finance and Resources Committee meeting on Tuesday, Conservative councillor Phil Doggart asked council officers who made the decision on allocating funds for the Tour de France.

Gareth Barwell, the city’s Executive Director of Place, said that no binding agreement on the council’s part in the Tour de France had not been signed yet, but that it needed to happen by June 30.

Doggart continued: “I will try that again, and with another extra clause at the end of it. Why was that not brought to councillors, particularly this committee?”

Mr Lawrence said: “I think the report makes plain that it’s the view of senior officers, certainly my view, that that was a mistake, and that that should have happened in that process.

“The report sets out how we are going to remind all colleagues, including myself, actually, that that was inappropriate and should not have happened.”

Cllr Doggart asked a third time, adding, “I still don’t think I’ve got an answer to my not very difficult question. Who made the decision?”

Mr Lawrence said: “Myself and other officers, but myself primarily, were approached around the Tour de France.

“We consulted with group leaders because of timing, of trying to say, ‘are we in to this?’ But we were absolutely clear that consulting with group leaders was not a decision of the council.

“But given that we had a positive steer, I felt we were able to proceed with the ongoing discussions. But when a decision needed to be made, we needed the resources put aside, hence the process that we went through.

“I now regret, and feel we either should have either come to Culture and Communities [Committee] before that or this committee.

“But the decision, signing on the dotted line for anything, no officer has made such a decision because we haven’t set the resources aside to do so.”

The 2027 edition of the Tour will be the first time that both the men’s and women’s races have started in the same country besides France.

It will also be the first time the race has visited Edinburgh, and the fifth time it has had any of its route inside the UK.

At Thursday’s meeting, SNP councillor Kate Campbell questioned the spend altogether.

She said: “There is very little explanation, really, of why we’re making those allocations. We’ve had no reports to councillors, no notes to the committee, about the value we’re getting.

“We really don’t know what the benefit to the city is.”

Committee convener and Labour councillor Mandy Watt said: “It is a shame that there’s been procedural issues about this, because it’s actually really exciting that this event is coming to Edinburgh.

“There’s a lot of interest in it. It would be nice if the women’s [race] was starting from here as well, but I think that’s either yet to be decided or not going to be happening.

“But still, it’s something to get really excited about. Hopefully, officers could be reminded – it’s not just councillors being awkward, the process is there to protect the officers themselves when they take decisions.

“If the process had all worked as if we would have hoped, we would have all been really excited about it.”

Council officers will provide regular updates to councillors on the progress of the funding, and what it is being used for, going forward.