My letter to the editor (January 12) regarding BVL financial failures/budget blowouts appears timely. The same day, SunLive published an item headed ‘Frictions between BVL and Council'. The history of TCC/BVL (and predecessors) at best has always been difficult, clearly now boiling over into the public view at last.

The last 15 years of BVL activities have been controversial: extravagant costs for Baywave $20m plus, ASB Arena $50m plus, Baypark $12-30m plus, debt/bailouts another $85m plus, planned second Baycourt $67m, more plans to extend ASB Arena/QE2 $45m, AuditNZ demanding a letter of comfort from TCC ratepayers (an unlimited indemnity/guarantee underwriting all BVL losses). Then we have noise, consent, operational breaches/complaints at Baypark.

At last surfacing is TCC staff saying "TCC staff are in a difficult position", apparently interpreting the BVL/TCC agreement that TCC staff no doubt wrote, then obtaining councillor approval.

The likely difficulty: intended objectives are unachievable ($16m odd losses/pa adding to rates/pa) or maybe easily achieved? Whatever the case, its epidemic within BVL/TCC when it comes to spending/waste of TCC ratepayers' hard-earned monies.

It's overdue that a public independent review of BVL/TCC is undertaken to provide assurance of accuracy and reporting with economical spending and results.

I Stevenson, Tauranga.