On 28 May 2014 David Monk said “that when the indicative costs were £11m I wasn’t pleased and if the costs had stayed at that we wouldn’t be where we are today. We wouldn’t be going forward…….because we aren’t stupid.” (See 1.10.47 on this video).
However, Shepway are once again planning on putting the leisure centre on PP. Their own report C/15/38 (cabinet meeting 4 Nov 2015) states that the cost of the recreation centre will be £8.65m plus £2.15m for remediation of contaminated land plus significant costs to mitigate the harm to the Royal Military Canal. So that’s going to more than £11m not counting other possible costs arising from risks not yet identified.