Did the Welsh Government always intend to scrap Circuit of Wales?

This Blog has always been  sceptical  about the   the cancelled Circuit of Wales  project  a £433m motor-racing track, hotel and business park in Blaenau Gwent  and  that it was another  "Potemkin village"  that was s  was originally used to describe a fake portable village, built only to impress. According to the story, Grigory Potemkin erected the fake portable settlement along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to fool Empress Catherine II during her journey to Crimea in 1787.

 The phrase is now used, typically in politics and economics, to describe any construction (literal or figurative) built solely to deceive others into thinking that some situation is better than it really is.

I wonder when the Welsh  Labour Government always believed that the project was doomed but for electoral purposes kept it going.?.

It is claimed that up to 3,300 jobs could have been created by aif the cancelled project had gone ahead as planned, consultants said.

The estimate is lower than that of the Circuit of Wales developers, but higher than figures cited by ministers when they walked away from the scheme.

Plaid Cymru has accused the Welsh Government of downplaying the benefits.

Ministers said it was misleading of Plaid to "cherry pick" draft data.

A leaked report by consultants Regeneris, commissioned by the Welsh Government, says building work could have created another 4,630 jobs during the construction phase - far fewer than the 11,773 estimated by the developers.

Although the project would have been built with private cash, the developers wanted the Welsh Government to guarantee half the cost of phase one of the Circuit of Wales, which included the racing track itself.

However, Plaid Cymru economy spokesman Adam Price said: 

"It's clear to me that the government used the lowest figures in the report in order to spare its blushes at pulling the plug on a project with significant potential in which it had invested millions."

Despite eventually rejecting it, the Welsh Government had given the Circuit of Wales backers more than £9m to develop the plans.

In April the auditor general criticised "significant shortcomings" in the way that money was handed over.

Acording to the Wasting Mule

The proposal for the Circuit led to immense hope in one of Wales’ most deprived areas and political figures like former Labour leader Lord Kinnock lobbied hard for the Circuit to be granted the loan guarantee.
But, partly on the basis of the due diligence reports, Economy Minister Ken Skates refused the guarantee the project had asked for in June this year.
Reports from specialists also looked into the Circuit’s claims about the number of jobs that would be created, the demand for attending live motorsport events and construction costs.
Consultants Chandler KBS warned that the 25-month plan to build the circuit was “optimistic” and queried the process by which a Catalan firm called FCC won the contract to build it.

It said: 

“The process leading to the emergence of [FCC] as preferred bidders is to an extent obscure insofar as it lacks the application of a formal evaluation methodology applied to the tender submissions and is not fully documented.
“...It cannot be concluded that best practice was employed in the selection of [FCC] due to the lack, in particular, of a formal tender evaluation process.”

You can see  "The 26 risks of the Circuit of Wales plan that led to it being turned down"  here and it is hard to concur with the decision to cancel the project.

But I wonder whether Welsh Government Minister had long decided that this was not viable  and that they should seek to cancel the project before the Assembly elections last yea?

It would explain why lower Jobs estimate was used making it easier to cancel a project they never thought would get of the ground anyway.

Was the plan all along to dangle the idea of the Circuit  of Wales before the Welsh electorate  especially that of Blaneau Gwent up to election time  knowing full well it was never going to be approved?

I as I said the start that I was sceptical of the project but shame on those who obviously shared it, but were prepared to offer false hope to one of our most deprived  areas.

Could the claim  that the the South Wales Metro is being 'set up to fail' according to  Labour Assembly Member Lee Waters be an Indication thet the Welsh government  are preparing to cancel another Potmekin Village that is being put to one side.