Everything seems to have worked out far better than we expected.
On top of the thirty-five million pounds, the cost for the bridge and road infrastructure is estimated at forty million. Therefore the project is estimated at seventy-five million.
Alison Crook is making all the right noises about creating follow up publicity bursts to keep everything in the public eye. She told us she is creating plans to roll these out as soon as the council announces our bid as the winner.
Yes, it’s all looking good at the moment.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
DAVE
Alison Crook’s work colleagues at MJA Housing Foundation are unaware she is the niece of the Head of the Town Planning Committee, Mr Peter Hogan. Neither do they realise that she is planning to feed inside information to him about their plans.
She is working with Dave and her uncle to create a bad publicity campaign which will enable Peter Hogan to persuade his fellow Planning Committee members to vote in favour of DR Social Housing Ltd, even though their bid is much lower.
Dave Rex has already spent a lot of time planning what to do to retrieve the money he feels is owed to him from the Lotto ticket. He is contemplating ways to let people know his ticket has been stolen and also methods of getting his hands on the £168 million – or what is left of it.
He also wants to make sure that James Sheldon’s charity doesn’t win the bid for Asbury Park. His plans for the area will make him a lot of money, even after he manages to get back his Lotto winnings. It is a matter of principle, and he wants James Sheldon out of the way. He wants him dead, just like his wife and two kids.
So now Dave is ready for war. A war to recover the money he is owed, and to destroy James Sheldon in every way possible.
He’ll start with the negative publicity campaign.
After all, the council wouldn’t wish to be seen to be connected to someone who courts bad publicity. The council think their public image shows they have a high moral profile and that needs to be maintained at all costs. The truth is the members of the committee are not unduly concerned about Asbury Park.
Too bad if the council receive a lower amount for the site. It doesn’t affect them. They can simply put word out that they have sold the site to the best bidder within the long-term interest of the town. All they are interested in is keeping their seats in the council. After all, the power and advantages to each member are extremely beneficial. The official dinners, the trips to the town they are twinned with in France, the fact-finding trips with all expenses paid and various other benefits.
Yes, even if selecting the lower bid doesn’t go down well with the voters now, it will all be forgotten about in a few days. Just like the bus shelter which cost £30,000 to build, but not one single bus actually stops there. That was front-page news for a couple of days, but now it’s forgotten.
As long as the publicity doesn’t affect them, then it really doesn’t matter, and in the higher chambers of the council, it’s understood you stick together, even if you know maybe one or two of your colleagues have an agenda because they probably are aware of things you’ve done in the past. Everyone covers for everyone else.
Dave intends to make sure that the council doesn’t even consider Sheldon’s bid. Alison Crook has prepared all the ammunition for the bad publicity campaign and has passed it onto him via her uncle, Peter Hogan. With just a couple of weeks to go until the council make their decision for the purchase of Asbury Park, Dave decides to put the first stage of his plan into operation.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE PRESS RELEASE
Alison has carefully prepared the document to cause the maximum damage and dent the credibility of James Sheldon and the charity:
“Homeless Man Stole My Lotto Ticket & Idea”
A well-respected local businessman has come forward after discovering both his winning Lotto ticket and plans to help the local community have been stolen.
In his report to the police, local entrepreneur David Rex says he was about to go on a two-week business trip to Spain when he purchased his Lotto ticket, using the same set of numbers as he did on a regular basis, from Tindall’s in Market Street.
He goes on to say that as he left the store he recalls being tripped up and left dazed and confused and that subsequently he discovered both his Lotto ticket and a file containing detailed plans of his bid to the council for the redevelopment of the Asbury Park estate had disappeared.
As he was about to leave for the airport the same evening, he says he did not notice the theft until airborne and did not report it until after his return, when he read the story about the homeless man winning the Lotto and recognised him from the photos in the newspapers as the man who had assaulted him at the store.
To his astonishment, he has since discovered the same individual is behind the rival bid regarding the redevelopment of the Asbury Park estate.
Mr Rex says hard work has been the key to successfully building up his business empire up over the past twenty years. He currently employs over thirty people and his plans to form a charity and develop the social housing scheme for Asbury Park are his way of giving back to the local community.
He
