MORE than £36,000 is being spent to prevent taxpayers finding out details of how the i360 will be able to pay back its £36 million loan.

Brighton and Hove City Council is continuing the legal battle to stop the full business case of Brighton’s tallest tourism attraction being released with a final decision expected this month.

But The Argus can reveal the expected cost of the year-long battle by the council not to release details on how much the attraction hopes to make from admissions, merchandise and drinks sales over its first ten years.

Council officials defended the move claiming release of the full, un-redacted business case would prejudice the commercial interests of the i360 and the council.

The detailed 35-page business case was produced by consultants D&J International Consulting in 2013 in order to convince councillors to agree to the £36.2 million loan.

Former Argus reporter John Keenan made an freedom of information request for the full, unredacted business case, which has never been made public, in September 2015 but the council refused his initial request and upheld their decision following an internal review.

Mr Keenan appealed to the Information Commissioner’s Office who ruled the business case should be released but the council appealed taking it to a paper hearing before the First Tier Tribunal later this month.

Ahead of that hearing, The Argus has learned that the council has paid a total of £26,688,51 to external legal advisors with a further expenditure of £10,000 anticipated.

Those legal fees could have been considerably higher had the original decision to have a full First Tier Tribunal hearing been upheld.

Mr Keenan said: “This is a disgraceful waste of time and money in a blatant effort to avoid transparency.

“We await the judgment of the information rights tribunal but whichever way it goes, the city's council taxpayers will foot the bill for this shameful exercise in opacity."

Adam Chinery, Brighton and Hove Seafront Traders Association chairman, said: “A lot of public money went into building it and that should be reflected in its accessibility to the public.

“If it was a completely private venture I could understand why they would want to keep it private but it is not, it is funded largely by the public.

“To spend that amount of money fighting it is a concern.”

A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesman said: “The council is in the process of appealing against the Information Commissioners' decision and therefore what we can say at this time is limited.

“However, the reason for refusing to release this information is because it would, or would be likely to, cause prejudice to the commercial interests of the Brighton i360 and also to the council as the senior funder for the attraction.”