Despite a range of high profile council financial crashes in recent years, the scale of Woking BC's losses is still shocking. A billion pound hit on the Government's borrowing figures is an all-time low.

The old adage ‘success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan' doesn't quite ring true here. While investments in Woking may pre-date the current regime, and the political and managerial leaders may want to cast the blame on their predecessors, culpability stretches far, far further.