Cr Ben Taylor asked for the report at last year’s December 14 meeting, when the council voted to drop the $40 million proposal to demolish the Civic Hall and replace it with council offices.

Cr Taylor said yesterday he was keen to see what was in the report.

“I want to know why we spent $1.5 million and what that was on, when the project didn’t go ahead,” Cr Taylor said. “If we were running a good project, it should all be well documented.”

Cr Taylor, who called for a community survey into the Civic Hall project last November, said he wasn’t surprised by its results released this week.

The survey showed more than 60 per cent of respondents opposed the project and 72 per cent were in favour of keeping the Civic Hall.

However, 57.4 per cent were in favour of demolishing the building while other options were identified.

Cr Taylor said the “crunch time” in the process for him came when an architect was selected.

“It was clear we hadn’t engaged the community, and we should have paused then and gone back to the community.”

He said the survey results should be used as the next step in deciding what should happen with the Civic Hall site.

But Cr Taylor also said council could still be involved on the site, just not as developers. “At least we need to set up the process so there is a foundation for the next council.”