“Buck of the Millenium” awards go to:

Leader Paul Diviani – Leader, that’s a clue!  He led his fellow-councillors up the Skypark creek and dropped them in their supermarket boat without paddles.

To the members of the Relocation Working Party for … well for nothing- wasting public money perhaps? Councillors Bloxham, Buxton, Cox, Diviani (of course), Elson, Gazzard, Hull, Moulding, Newth, Stott and Twiss. Particular mention here for Councillor Newth who, as a Sidmouth councillor, allowed the Knowle and all its employees to slip away on her watch.

Special mentions must go to the Chief Executive Mark Williams and particularly to the Deputy Chief Executive Richard Cohen who managed to make the whole process so secret that no checks and balances could take place, let alone consultation. It is possible that the fatal flaws would have been spotted much earlier had they been in the public domain so why … .

And, last but definitely not least, let us not forget “embedded” Relocation Manager Steve Pratten, hired out from Davis Langdon for a huge fee to provide us with …. er … pass.

To all these we would really like to say ….. goodbye.

A statistic: the amount of money spent on this failed project would have paid a good part of the upgrade costs of the Knowle.