Capital of Culture Update: The big kick-off

After all the troubles besetting Liverpool as it heads towards the Capital of Culture year, at least the announcement of the big concert with Paul McCartney went smoothly enough, right?

Not exactly, it turns out. Today's Liverpool Echo is reporting that the Culture Company burned through almost a fifth of a million quid trying to hold it down the docks before deciding to shift it to Anfield - having discovered the scheme they'd already invested in would take another eight million to pull off:

The Salthouse plan would have involved draining the dock, which is between Albert Dock and Wapping, then building a stage and tiers of seating to hold up to 25,000 people.

The basin would have then been re-filled so the stage appeared to be floating on the water.

Cllr Anderson said he wrote to council chief executive Colin Hilton two weeks ago because of concerns about the bill.

They met this week and Cllr Anderson said Mr Hilton had confirmed to him the bill was around £175,000.

How many experts do you think it takes to work out that draining a dock and then refilling it would cost an eye-watering amount of cash, do you suppose?