To avoid serious political and reputational damage, Kent County Council (KCC) is desperately trying to cover-up the final costs of building Thanet Parkway station.
This is hardly surprising when the original construction costs were estimated, in 2013, to be £11million. A figure which increased year on year to become £44 million in 2023.
But it doesn’t end there. KCC committee reports throughout 2023 warned that the final bill for the construction and opening of Parkway station was expected to be significantly more than the £44 million it had been touting around in the media.
To find out how much that bill was likely to be KCC commissioned, in June 2023, specialist transport consultants Sable Leigh (SL) to produce a final cost report. The commission required SL to provide the report by February 2024 in exchange for a fee of £48,000.
Since March 2023 I have been using information rights law to secure a full copy of the SL report, but KCC have used every trick in the book to keep it under lock and key. Perhaps this is because the final cost of Parkway station might be around the £60million mark: a staggering 445% increase on the original estimate.
Such a huge increase in cost, if it were to be made public, would raise very serious questions about KCC’s management of the Parkway station project and may also reveal incompetence and lack of experience by those officers and politicians who supervised the project.
The disclosure of the information would also allow tax payers to judge whether Parkway station does, or ever will, provide value for money as is claimed by Parkway cheerleaders such as Thanet Council’s Labour Leader, Rick Everitt.
There can be no doubt that the disclosure of the report will shine fresh light upon the massive cuts recently made by KCC to essential public services, which perhaps were much greater than they needed to be because of the Parkway cash gobbling black hole.
Thanet Parkway is already seen by many as an uber-expensive white elephant and a politically driven vanity project. I personally hope that the growing scandal surrounding the station might yet become the scandal that leads to the long overdue dissolution of KCC. Something I have been arguing for for a long time.
In the meantime, KCC has one more chance to let me have a copy of the SL cost report. If it refuses, I will take the matter to the Information Tribunal. KCC will undoubtedly spend tens of thousands of pounds in defending the indefensible at the Tribunal in a futile effort to cover up the truth about this controversial and probably unnecessary £60million project for which you have paid.
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