Blacksheep,
I think we are all puzzled by this dodgy situation but to say that DARA was screwing MinDef out of enough cash to pay off a 104 million quid hangar is a little amiss.
At the time of the Business Appraisal the MOD concluded that it should go ahead. A quite robust investigation was carried out and it was deemed that there was a business case for it and the services needed it. The E2E study was begun around the same time as the hangar was going up and the decision to move the work was made around the time it was nearing completion! As the initial board of inquiry into the turnabout stated, 'what has changed in 18 months to turn a perfectly good BA 180 degrees around?'
If you read the transcript of that inquiry you will see how tongue-tied the Generals and AVMs were with their answers.
It is not DARA that is screwing us tax payers, it is the MinDef. I think we should make that distinction.