Richard Shakespeare

Yeah, and I think...

You know, I'm not here to apologise for the sins of the past, but in my previous life, I would have sort of seen it as, I suppose, an act of cultural vandalism, the largest Viking settlement outside of Scandinavia.

But I suppose I am where I am.

And, you know, just to frame it, you know, I didn't acquire the site for 581 million.

The site was acquired for 90 million plus VAT and fees, which is about 104 million.

And I, you know, as a public servant, people like us to be creative, like us to be brave and like to be ambitious.

And, you know, two of the big challenges, but the major challenge I have at the moment is housing.

The other one was, you know, the opportunity to spend quite a considerable amount of money retrofitting the civic offices.

You could say that.

I think what it is, is that as the accounting officer for the city council, I've many things to look at.

OK, so, yeah, environmental considerations are one, cost is another, regeneration is another and housing is another.

So an opportunity presented itself.

about October of last year, where the Arup report that we had commissioned was crystallising and the costs were coming in, you know, at that 487 million if it was a single move.

And that includes about, you might say, 152 million of...

renting offices for 10 years, because that's the length of time it will take.

There were two options.

There was one in terms of we could have played Tetris with the staff and done it in bits and pieces, or we could go in one fell swoop.

Now, we're also responsible for delivering services.

So from that perspective, you know, trying to get a coherency in the services that we deliver, you know, a single move would be preferable.

Do I want to, you might say, move twice, move out, move back, move out, move back?