SS
I am still working on this blimp item, if ever there was an advert for a consistent [national] aquisitions policy this seems to be it.
It seems that this is an internal whistle blower job and the 'rag' involved is the Manchester Evening News, lots of twists and turns on this including the purchase price.
The original official GMP quote on price was £800,000 which is consistent with a discount on the manufacturers list price of $1,3M ....you get an HGV to keep it in, that includes a mini control room, the gas bag, gas and sensor pod along with a legth of string..... but then someone at GMP bottled and the quote zoomed down to £80,000.... that is some fairy tale of a discount on the list price for all that gear!
Last I heard was that the MEN was running a story Saturday that brought into doubt another financial quote on the amount GMP raised from selling the bits..... a nice rounded number of £20,000 has been mentioned in some press reports ..... a goodly 25% of the purchase price except that MEN said they have seen the number as £13,000 [less fees?], so we may be down to about 2% of that 'real' price. Still not seen the Saturday MEN article though so not confirmed.