The council is to set aside millions of pounds in case the Brighton i360 continues to default on its loan repayments.

The “provision” in the accounts is likely to be £2.2 million a year and to be a feature of the annual accounts for many years to come.

The revelation came this evening at a meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council’s policy and resources committee at Hove Town Hall.

The former Labour leader of the council, Daniel Yates, was scathing about the business, with the council left liable for servicing a loan for the i360 from the Public Works Loan Board.

And he was scornful of the prospect of the i360 stumping up £1 million in the coming year towards the outstanding total of £47 million.

Cllr Yates welcomed the inclusion of the “provision” in the budget. But he said that the council’s external auditors had made clear that they were concerned about the loan repayments and expected the risk to be recognised in the budget.

Green councillor Tom Druitt, who chairs the i360 working group, said that a fully costed new business plan would go before a special meeting of the policy and resources committee.

Cllr Yates said that when the committee met last month, it was promised the revised business plan but this was still awaited.

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Potential repayment figures were based on “flowery ideas”, he said, adding: “We were told by the end of that month they would be presenting a business case to this council – not just coming in and talking about flowers and unicorns because, quite frankly, this city is sick of flowers and unicorns.

“It’s already facing 20 years of repayments (to the Public Works Loan Board) at £2.2 million a year – £44 million coming out of our budget – not because of central government cuts but because of useless business people that have singularly failed to deliver the returns that were expected from them when they did produce a business case which is still being kept secret from everyone.

“The fact now we’re willing to take their word for it on the basis of wouldn’t it be nice if suddenly lots of money started pouring out the top of the i360 doesn’t sound to me like good governance.”

Millions of pounds of repayments by the i360 have been missed because of bad weather, the coronavirus pandemic restrictions and visitor numbers falling short of forecasts.

Councillors agreed to a revised loan agreement last summer but the i360 did not sign the deal although it did hand over £700,000.

In December, the i360 was due to pay at least £900,000 but failed to make any payment although council finance chief Nigel Manvell said that efforts to recover some money were continuing.