Trying to get some sense on the Tower

Long-time critic of the Milennium Tower, Mike Hancock has been trying to get some commonsense to prevail on the issue for almost a decade now.

In 2002, Mike and the Lib Dems said enough was enough and that the City Council should find a way forward to construct the Tower without any more taxpayers' money being spent.

This was after a number of mistakes under the leadership of the Conservatives and Labour had already cost the council £1 million.

They could even have had negiotiations with the Millennium Commission to have a smaller and cheaper Tower. However, they didn't proceed with this.

On 15 October 2002, Labour and Conservative councillors voted to go ahead with a contract with Mowlem. The Liberal Democrats voted against this but were outvoted by Labour and the Tories. This is now a legally-binding contract on the City Council and has to be honoured.

Mike said "Our hands are now tied thanks to the contract that Labour and Conservatives voted for and the previous mistakes that they made. The new Lib Dem administration are doing all they can to make the best of a bad deal