IN a triumphant press release two years ago, Bournemouth council announced the Barratts deal would not only fund the entire Boscombe seafront development but also provide them with £300,000 in loose change.

“This is great news… the developments are not costing the local taxpayer a penny in capital costs,” claimed then deputy leader Adrian Fudge.

How times change. Now we know that the £9.66million paid by Barratts is woefully short of covering the full £11.07m cost of the surf reef and Overstrand redevelopment.

Instead, it is fallen to council taxpayers to make up the difference. As the costs have increased, councillors have chosen to dip into the town’s capital pot (a savings account for major projects) to prop up the project.

It’s claimed this is merely a temporary measure and the capital pot will be topped-up once the project is completed.

But there is no cast-iron guarantee of this.

The reimbursements are dependent on Barratts selling a set number of seafront flats in the most difficult economic circumstances for decades and on the sale of the Wayne Hemingway-designed surf pods.

With all this in mind, you might think that Cllr Beverley Dunlop, cabinet member for leisure and tourism, could be losing her enthusiasm for the project.

But she is quick to refute any such suggestion. “I am absolutely convinced that this project is going to be fantastic for the area,” she said.

“I moved to Sea Road years ago, purely because of this project. I just know that it is going to be a huge draw for the area, it is already creating a huge buzz.

“There’s no way we would not want to go ahead with this project, it’s going to completely transform the area.

“There’s regeneration and there’s regeneration. You can come along and paint all the buildings but that doesn’t necessarily bring any new people into the area.

“Doing something really innovative and different – that’s real regeneration.”

Hopefully, she will be proved right. But in the meantime, it does seem that everything that can go wrong with the project, is.

The initial budget – now shown to be almost £3million out - was drawn up under the previous administration but the new Tory leaders have certainly overseen their share of problems.

Last June, when it was announced that the cost of the surf reef contract had increased by £974,000, the council claimed the extra money had secured them a guarantee from ASR that the reef would be finished by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, what the council failed to mention was the fact that this guarantee was “weather-dependent” and so when ASR were not able to complete the reef, the council couldn’t claim back a penny.

In fact, ASR’s inability to complete the work before the end of the year has actually cost the council extra money.

The council paid ASR £100,000 to assist with their “demobilisation and remobilisation costs,” or, in non-council speak, the costs involved in them downing tools for the winter.

They’ve also had to spend £70,100 flattening the huge mound of sand by Boscombe pier and have set aside a contingency fund of £169,000 to buy extra sand to replace all the material lost over the winter.

The news that the Overstrand building would be far more expensive to refurbish than first thought has also sparked questions as to why a full structural survey wasn’t carried out. Cllr Dunlop admitted she doesn’t know the answer to that: “That question has been asked but in all honesty, I have to say I don’t know. I wasn’t in charge, I wasn’t even a councillor at the time.

“All I can say is that the costs would have been unavoidable, whether we’d had a survey or not. They just wouldn’t have been a surprise.

“There is always unforseen stuff with all projects, more contingency could have been built in. Certainly, a private company would have done so.”

Unsurprisingly, there have been calls for heads to roll over the budget increases.

Cllr Dunlop said changes had been made: “The project manager is no longer in place and a project board has now been established, with former head of highways Geoff Turnbull taking over the day to day running of the project.

“I’m fairly confident that we know everything that there is to know now and there will be no more nasty surprises.”

Famous last words? Only time will tell.