The tender price index for British construction has risen 15% since EDDC announced the cost of the Honiton new build in March 2015.
Yet EDDC claim that the £669,000 increase in the cost of Exmouth can be absorbed within the overall budget of £9.2 million. We know that Exmouth was budgeted to cost £1 million, so the budget for Honiton was £8.2 million. We know that Exmouth has been subject to a 67% increase.
What can we expect for Honiton? Assuming that the costs will rise in line with the tender price index, the new cost will be £8.2 million, plus 15%. Which means another £1.23 million, totalling £9.43 million. It will, of course, probably go a lot higher.
Costs have therefore risen by £2 million since March 2015, but anticipated receipts from the sale of Knowle are unchanged. We appear to have lost £2 million – and we haven’t even started!
Will any of this figure in the debate? Probably not – our Tory councillors don’t enjoy discussing numbers that they don’t like!
East Devon Watch 
Tory leadership know that the numbers no longer stack up (assuming that they ever did stack up – this is after all a vanity project where numbers are kept secret because a bad business case doesn’t matter nearly as much as the kudos and power that this project bestows) – but they cannot possibly lose face by backing down now.
The lower-ranks of Tory councillors blindly trust their leadership, and will vote for them without either feeling the need, or putting in the time required, to really understanding the detail.
Which means that neither the leadership nor the rank-and-file will want to debate numbers. No doubt members of the public will loudly question the numbers during public speaking only to be fobbed off with a platitude by Richard Cohen without the right to criticise the answer, then opposition councillors will ask probing questions about the finances and will get a long-winded response which will not really answer the question though Richard Cohen and The Div will say it does.
Then maybe there will be a vote to continue with the project, and the Tory drones will either trust their leadership or fear becoming a social outcast at the local Conservative Association if they break ranks and vote against – either way the project will get the green light to keep frittering away OUR money.
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