SDLP councillor Carl Whyte said he was “very concerned” that the deal has been put on hold.

“Potentially we’re seeing the same thing we’ve seen at Casement Park,” he said.

“Further confusion and uncertainty” places the project “at risk”, according to the councillor.

“There are so many other capital projects in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, which stop and stall because of political division, because of legal challenges, and because of all these obstacles which means we can get nothing meaningful built here.”

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster programme, Alliance councillor Michael Long said delays to the project are “costing hundreds of thousands of pounds every few months”.

Long told the programme that the attraction will be built regardless, but that without the involvement of the BBC the venue “will not have that enhanced space, which will make a massive problem for our local arts sector”.

Green Party councillor Áine Grogan said her party had voted against the deal due to a “lack of transparency”.

Grogan said councillors had not seen “details of the economic relationship or the legal relationship” between the BBC and the project, and that she was unsure what the BBC’s role as a “key user” would entail.