SEASIDE councillors will be told this week that the cost of Europe's biggest sea defence scheme, currently nearing completion at Scarborough, has doubled to £54m.
The borough council's cabinet will be told in a session behind closed doors that contractors Edmund Nuttall and consultants High Point Rendell are in dispute over the new figure.
Nuttalls says the cost of carrying out the work on Marine Drive and Royal Albert Drive and the 250-year-old East Pier is £54m.
But High Point Rendell which has been at the centre of an Audit Commission report on the council's awarding of a consultancy contract to the company, claims the figure should be £34m.
The council's chief executive, John Trebble, said that any changes in the cost will be picked up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the environment, not council tax payers.
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