Anyone who has employed a builder knows that as sure as eggs are eggs the price agreed at the outset of a contract is rarely the price charged at the end.

So are we surprised when Howard Holdings announces it wants an extra £30 million to work on the Pavilion site? (Pavilion costs soar to £150 million', Echo, February 14).

This latest figure, increased from the company's first estimate of £90 million made just three years ago, is only today's revised guesstimate.

What will the final cost be when the grandiose development is completed in time for 2012 Olympics?

Given that materials, fuel and the cost of services are leaping ahead even as we speak, can we expect another £60 million-plus increase which would be in line with the Howard Holding's cost escalator?

Naturally, we townspeople have not been told how the developer has hatched this latest figure; we have absolutely no idea of the way the budget has been put together.

We know the menu, the new ferry terminal, the flats, the hotel etc, but we do not know the price.

I have some sympathy for our councillors who must be feeling a degree of regret that they ever got themselves embroiled in a project whose costs are racing away out of control.

This probably explains why Howard Holdings has had to bring in a financial partner, Europa Capital, to help fund the planning stage.

We would all do well to remember this. The more Howard Holdings spends, the longer Weymouth and Portland Borough Council has to wait before it gets its promised share of the profit from the redevelopment scheme.

Speaking as a cynic, is it not entirely in a developer's interests to creatively inflate costs in order to show an enhanced margin to its shareholders?

Where there is the absence of a fixed price contract, the more it spends, the more it makes - that's business!

Until the council opens the books and shows the numbers to the residents and ratepayers, this rather dark thought will prevail in many minds.

JOHN SHEPHERD, Springfield Road, Weymouth.