LIVERPOOL City Council has revealed that it plans to cater for turnaround cruises in three months’ time.

The shock announcement was made by council leader Joe Anderson, who said the city would pay back whatever cash is demanded to use it £20m taxpayer funded terminal to start and finish cruises.

The shipping minister last week rejected an offer by Liverpool to repay £5.3m of the taxpayer funding it was granted by the Government to lift the ban.

Independent experts are now advising ministers on how much Liverpool should repay after complaints from Southampton and other ports over unfair competition.

But the latest Liverpool announcement made no mention of the £9m of EU cash that it received to build its Pier Head terminal.

The public handouts were granted on the strict condition the City of Liverpool Cruise Terminal, which opened in 2007, was only used for stop-off cruises.

The audacious move was met with surprise and dismay in Southampton, which has fought Liverpool’s attempts to lift the restrictions on turnaround cruises before paying back all the public subsidy it received.

Councillor Anderson, who has just launched a bid to become the new mayor of Liverpool, claimed to have an agreement with the minister, and told the Liverpool Post: “I am very excited about what will be a new era for us.”

He added: “I expect Liverpool to be so popular for turnarounds we will be developing a second cruise terminal with Peel in its Liverpool Waters plans.

“I want to thank Mr Penning for being so attentive and giving us a fair hearing.

Southampton council leader Royston Smith said: "If he is now prepared to pay the entire public subsidy back then I can only say perhaps he should have offered that in the first place.”

The Department for Transport insisted nothing had changed, saying it was waiting for an independent assessment of how much state funding Liverpool should pay back.

Doug Morrison, ABP port director for Southampton, said repayment of UK funding could not be considered in isolation to the EU funding.

He said: “Our position has been straightforward all along. We have never had an issue with cruises starting and ending in Liverpool, but we believe the cruise industry should be run on a commercial basis and that there is no place for public subsidy of any kind.

"Full repayment of all the public money, including the European grants, should be a mandatory condition if the Liverpool terminal wants to compete with private investment for the turnaround cruise business.”