Somerset Council "took too long" to suspend the ill-fated Life Factory project in Glastonbury after alarms were raised, a new report has concluded.

Somerset Council chief executive Duncan Sharkey formally apologised on December 9 for the mistakes made on the Life Factory project, which saw £2.89m of public money invested in a failed attempt to transform part of the Red Brick Building on Morland Road into community events space, offices, and other facilities.

In response to a probe by auditors Grant Thornton, the council has published a 'lessons learned' report, which highlights the errors associated with the project and recommended how they can be avoided in the future.

The report has found significant failings in the project, with officers having "no way to measure progress" and insufficient controls on how the money was spent.

The report puts numerous recommendations in place to ensure that these mistakes are not repeated on either projects, both within the Glastonbury town deal and on other government-backed schemes.

Here's everything you need to know:

What is the full timeline of events?

In late-2020, the then-Conservative government provided 'accelerator funding' to the 101 towns selected for the towns fund, allowing projects to get off the ground during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Glastonbury town deal received £500,000 of this funding, of which £250,000 was given to the Life Factory to "commence work on

bringing Building C back into use" – with the intention to continue this work once the Treasury had approved the wider business case for the project.

This work was successfully completed, with one section of Building C being made "weather-tight, safe and secure" with new floors being installed.

An audit by the South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) criticised how this accelerator funding had been spent, describing the project management as "informal" – but it noted the "obvious progress" that had been made using local labour.

The Treasury formally signed off on the Life Factory's five-part business case in June 2022, with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) providing the additional allocated funding for the project and signing the grant funding agreement in March 2023.

The Beckery Construction Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Red Brick Building board, was formed deliver the "building shell" using the town deal grant and apply for match funding to pay for the remainder of the work.

This model had been followed by other projects in the town deal programme, with the knowledge of both the town deal board and central government.

However, the grant funding delivery plan "was not completed or costed" and an expression of interest to the Arts Council was unsuccessful.

The Life Factory plans failed to secure planning permission from the council, and two senior officers associated with the project left the town deal board in the autumn of 2023, leaving resources for the town deal "diminished".

The town deal board was told in September 2023 by the lead officer for the project that it "could be delivered without match funding" and open in the spring of 2025.

However, "concerns mounted" in November and December 2023, with the council formally "pausing" the project in January 2024.

"Targeted payments" totalling £420,000 were subsequently made after this date to ensure apprentices had been paid and the wall between the Life Factory and the rest of the Red Brick Building was safe and secure.

A further SWAP audit into the project in July 2024, which revealed in May 2025 that there "insufficient controls, lack of costed delivery plans and non-compliance with procurement rules" throughout the project.

The project remains the subject of an ongoing investigation by Avon and Somerset Constabulary, following a referral in June 2025.

The police have been approached by the Local Democracy Reporting Service for an update on the status of this investigation.

Somerset Council formally terminated the project in November 2025 – along with the food and regenerative farming centre on Porchestall Drove – and has sought repayment of £2,295,512.50 paid to Red Brick Building Centre Ltd.

What went wrong?

The report concluded that because the project's delivery plan had not been agreed, there was "no way to measure progress against any form of time-bound milestones".

This in turn meant there was no "definitive agreement on the total amount of funding needed to deliver the outcomes in full" – which would have made it harder to secure the match funding required.

The report found that "by choosing to work through the Beckery Construction Company model, control and oversight by the Red Brick Board was diluted", giving elected representatives little influence over the project's direction and creating a culture of "drift".

When reports were produced by the Beckery Construction Company (including claims for the grant funding to pay contractors), they were "usually deficient, lacking accuracy and detail" – meaning the council should not have paid the financial claims.

Instead, the grant money was "spent quickly" and would run out "well before the project could be delivered".

Because it was not always receiving accurate information, the council was slow to escalate the issue, "took too long" to suspend the project and did not use any of the grant funding to bring in additional resources to support delivery (e.g. paying for more officer time).

The loss of several town deal board members in the autumn of 2023 meant that "organisational knowledge and visibility of the scheme" was lost.

What lessons need to be learned?

The report that said that "weaknesses in the governance, assurance and delivery arrangements" within the Glastonbury town deal programme had been reviewed, especially in light of the reorganisation of Somerset's local government.

Improvements are under way to "strengthen risk reporting, financial processes and assurance" to ensure proper processes are followed and to "improve transparency, accountability and decision-making".

In practical terms, any project reliant on match funding must secure it before the council commits any significant capital outlay in the future.

These processes will apply not only to the remaining Glastonbury town deal projects, but projects within the Bridgwater town deal, those funded by the government's future high streets fund (such as the Firepool boulevard in Taunton), those funded by the levelling up fund (such as the Tonedale Mill regeneration in Wellington) and other funding pots.

Mr Sharkey said: "We take the findings of the independent audit very seriously alongside our role as accountable body in these matters.

"We recognise that there were failings in the past and we need to make improvements.

"We have already taken a wide range of actions, and we will continue to embed stronger controls and governance to ensure public funds are managed responsibly and future projects deliver maximum benefit for Somerset communities."

What happens next?

The Life Factory will be debated further by the council's audit committee at its next meeting in Taunton on Monday morning (December 22).

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