"At this stage, the evidence says it is a white elephant," Milbourne said.

The MasterChef celebrity said after 18 months of "this constant wolf at the door," it had taken a mental toll.

"I was feeling pretty bad. Going away to do MasterChef again probably saved me," he said.

He is speaking about the closure after financial troubles of his restaurant CharlotteJack, which he opened as part of his role as an ambassador for PP, but failed to agree on a new lease with the Devonport City Council. He believes it can get turned around, but that the site for PP is wrong and needs a planned waterfront hotel to have any chance.

At the time, Milbourne said he questioned the position of PP behind the town hall.

He said he got told the plans were already done but he said it should have been where the new hotel is or the paranaple centre.

"Going up the escalator, you get views of the river and the Spirits coming in and out," he said.

Council offices in the paranaple centre boast stunning views of the Mersey River.

An emotional Milbourne said he felt "defeated" and wiped tears away, explaining the loss of a venue named after his children.

"Failures are failures, and most people get to do them in silence. Mine is in the paper and through the radio stations, but you've got to front up to that," he said.

"I tried, and I failed, and I've got to wear that. It's one of those badges you have to wear in the industry".

He said he was proud of the food at the restaurant and the staff.

He said under a new $52,000 a year lease proposed by the council, he could not afford the extra $1000 a week with the restaurant in debt and losing money.

"Considering there's no trade there and the council doesn't seem to be doing anything to try to get people in there," he said.

"There were meant to be markets five days a week and events at weekends. That's what we went in under the expectation of happening."

Milbourne said he previously paid $60,000 rent to ex-Providore Place head leasee Grant Hirst subsidised by a marketing deal he struck for his national television show Food Lab filmed at PP.

He has a new cooking show screening on Channel 10 in November called Left Off The Map and was hoping the council would agree to a similar deal.

Mr Hirst paid Milbourne a $5000 a month marketing fee to promote PP on his TV shows.

However, after the council ended its lease with Mr Hirst over unpaid rent, it wanted to enter into a commercial contract with Mr Milbourne.

"That's fine, that's what they're there for, but there was no way we could afford it on top of where we already are financially behind the eightball, and we were still trying to work it out," he said.

BLINDSIDED BY LEASE ANNOUNCEMENT

Milbourne said he felt "blindsided" by the council announcing suitable lease terms could not be reached.

"It's not what I was expecting, to be honest, it has been tough," he said.

He said there were more talks scheduled to try to resolve the lease issues that did not occur before the council issued the statement.

"We opened the restaurant with a positive outlook on what that space was going to look like, and we had complete faith in PP. I was one of the proponents of pushing it forward and making it work," he said.

"I finished up as a food ambassador once we took over the lease, and my job then was to create a brilliant restaurant, which is what I focused on.

"We kept asking when steps would happen to create the market and got told they were waiting to get the other leaseholds filled.

"From my point of view, we have done everything we possibly could.

"We created a restaurant that has received nothing but good reviews from all the critics than have come.

"We filmed the TV show there, and we exposed it as much as we could.

"We tried many different opening times and opened seven days a week for a while ..."

Milbourne said over summer, the restaurant did well before the COVID-19 restrictions.

He said it was closed for two weeks at Christmas because of a commitment with Tourism Tasmania for him to be at the Taste of Tasmania, where he earned money to pay staff.

Milbourne said he did 70 hour weeks at the restaurant the first year, and there was no one in PP or Market Square.

"We hoped once they got the big screen in and the market was going, it would bring people in, but there's just this aversion to coming into that space...," he said.

Milbourne said once the council signed the lease with Mr Hirst to run PP, it stepped back.

He said there should have been council support for the first three years to achieve the PP concept plan.

He said he felt caught in the middle of PP, becoming a political football.

"We thought we could trade through if we could come to an arrangement with council," he said.

"The feedback came back to me; they wanted to make money out of it, so I was trying to figure something out."

He said he hopes whoever takes over the restaurant tenancy is successful and doesn't suffer from the stigma around PP.

He said he would offer them his support.

"They're starting from zero, so they might get support from the council to get them through until the hotel gets built. When we first signed up, the council was very supportive, then you're in a building where councillors themselves are bagging it everywhere, and it made it hard," he said.

"I would hate to see it stay empty, especially when we were happy to stay on with no rent and to film the new TV show there."

He thanked the people who came to the restaurant and said outstanding restaurant vouchers would get reimbursed.