Will Paul Diviani’s Cabinet* be shown to have chosen the worst option for taxpayers last night? Their recommendation to Full Council is to move to Honiton, despite having no Knowle sale agreed and with no guarantee of what price the current site will eventually fetch. This situation, and the obligation to now take out a loan, smacks of continued clumsy handling of the ‘ambition’ to relocate. Whether or not Pegasus Life has lost interest, any potential buyer of the Knowle, one of Sidmouth’s prime and prized sites, is set to drive a hard bargain.
As the Sidmouth Herald headlined last week, the figure for the famously declared “cost neutral” Council HQ move, has now topped £10,000,000. And not a brick for the Honiton newbuild has yet been laid ……
Related information at links below:
http://futuresforumvgs.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/knowle-relocation-project-district.html
and on EDDC website:
*Current Cabinet membership, as listed on EDDC website:
Iain Chubb, Conservative
Paul Diviani, Conservative – Leader of the council
Jill Elson, Conservative
Andrew Moulding, Conservative – Deputy leader of the council
Geoff Pook, Independent
Philip Skinner, Conservative
Ian Thomas, Conservative
Phil Twiss, Conservative
Eileen Wragg, Liberal Democrats
Tom Wright, Conservative
Save Our Sidmouth 
April 7, 2017 at 9:00 am
Makes my blood boil! When can we get rid of these councillors and this preposterous idea! Certainly, there are no benefits to Sidmouth except to those involved with the building on the land!
April 7, 2017 at 12:45 pm
Ineptitude doesn’t come close. As someone with c. 20 years Project Management experience, much of it in the public sector, this is possibly the most shambolic public sector project I have ever come across, without a proper scope document, no formal business case, and no proper governance processes to ensure that changes to scope are managed properly or that the business case continues to hold water or that gateway reviews are conducted properly at major decision points (like the one just passed where a decision to commit to large expenditure was made).
Genuinely shocking ineptitude of the greatest order – or perhaps simply a deliberate decision to appear inept in order to pursue a vanity project which will cost us all a lot of money.
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