THE controversial Hurn lagoon water park project given £70,000 of taxpayer’s money, was ‘re-scored’ by senior BCP Council bosses after being given a zero rating for deliverability by independent assessors.

The zero score from the Dorset Growth Hub meant the water park failed the criteria to be awarded BCP coronavirus Bounce Back cash and the assessors marked it to be refused.

But the scheme proposed by a company called Adventure is Out There 365, had its deliverability score bumped up to 5 by the council – which meant it did qualify for cash.

The £70k is to help fund a planning application.

The figures released under a Freedom of Information request show the original and rescored figures – although there was no mention this had been done when BCP published the grants awards last month.

The Echo understands around 14 of the other 100 or so applications had their scores increased and four were downgraded.

Now questions are being asked about the whole process at full council today (Tuesday).

Councillor Vikki Slade, opposition leader, told the Echo: “There are huge issues of transparency here. Why have a set of rules which can then be changed with the stroke of a pen?”

In total the council distributed £3m under the BBCF scheme.

The regrading was carried out by BCP’s awards panel which was made up of just BCP deputy leader Cllr Philip Broadhead and a senior officer.

The Growth Hub gave the lagoon a total 11 marks – deliverability 0, pride in place 4, helping economy bounce back 3 and innovation 4.

But the awards panel later gave it 5 marks each for deliverability, pride of place and innovation and 3 for helping the economy bounce back – a total of 18.

The council says the criteria was for the deliverability of the planning application, not the deliverability of the scheme itself, whereas the Growth Hub clearly scored zero for deliverability of the scheme.

The Dorset Growth Hub, a publicly funded business support organisation, was asked by the council to externally and independently assess all the applications and was paid for so doing.

And there are also queries over whether proper guidance for the distribution of the cash was followed and how much BCP officials knew about a much further advanced rival water park scheme just a few miles away, when they handed out the £70,000.

Cllr Philip Broadhead said at the time to the Echo: “Following the competitive application process, we were pleased to award a grant to the Lagoon Project. Funding will help them to engage with the local community, share their vision and apply for the necessary permissions.”

At full council, Hurn ward councillor Margaret Phipps is to ask Cllr Broadhead what the council knew about the rival scheme at St Leonards where the developers have already signed a memorandum of understanding with Dorset Council and a planning application is imminent.

Cllr Phipps added: “I also really question whether the guidance for giving out Bounce Back money has been followed in this process for the lagoon and indeed perhaps other grants.

“This funding was meant for companies which had been affected by coronavirus to help them bounce back. There are other businesses impacted that were refused.

“The lagoon is not a trading company in the location the grant was allocated for Hurn and was not affected by coronavirus because the lagoon attraction does not exist. Scores were changed and this non-existent scheme was given £70k. They should give the money back.”

Cllr Slade said it appeared the processes set out for the Bounce Back fund had not been followed and it was neither transparent nor fair.

She said the involvement of elected members in the awards process was “fundamentally wrong”.

The council’s monitoring officer, Susan Zeiss, said: “ I am satisfied that Cllr Broadhead’s role was to be part of a panel which followed a transparent process on the advice of recognised external consultants and according to government guidance.

“Cllr Broadhead was not acting alone and the final decision was that of the panel.”

BCP Council declined to answer a number specific questions from the Echo about the re-scoring process and would only say: “We will not discuss the merits of individual awards. However, we believe all applications were processed in accordance with government guidelines applicable at the relevant time.

“We envisage all local authorities that issued Additional Restrictions Grant funding will be audited by government in due course. BCP Council will cooperate fully with any future audit.”