Peterborough's unfinished Hilton has been hanging over the city for years. Now there appears to be a buyer — but there is still one rather large question.

How much of Peterborough's money is actually coming back?

Peterborough City Council is owed around £17m after the Fletton Quays hotel project collapsed.

 Council cabinet member Cllr Mohammed Jamil has publicly put the sale figure at around £2.5m–£2.6m.

That sounds like a very ugly gap.

But it would be wrong simply to subtract £2.6m from £17m and declare that Peterborough has lost the difference.

The final bill is more complicated than that.

The council originally agreed a loan facility of up to £15m in 2017 to support the Hilton Garden Inn scheme at Fletton Quays.

With interest added, the amount owed to the council later reached around £17m.

The hotel company went into administration in October 2023, with Peterborough City Council the main secured creditor.

Being secured puts the council in a stronger position than an ordinary creditor, but it doesn't mean £17m automatically comes back.

There will be the sale proceeds, administrator costs, legal and sale costs, interest and potentially other recoveries or claims to account for.

Until that final calculation is published, £17m minus the reported sale price is not the taxpayer loss.

What we do know is that the council has already acknowledged it does not expect to recover the loan in full.

And that's where this moves from an unfinished-building story to a Peterborough money story.

If millions of pounds are being written off, residents deserve to know three things:

How much came back?

How much was ultimately lost?

And how did the council end up in this position in the first place?

There is also the political argument.

Cllr Jamil has said the current administration inherited the problem from the previous Conservative leadership and decided against borrowing another £15m–£20m to finish the hotel.

Former council leader Wayne Fitzgerald has defended the original project and criticised the eventual disposal.

Both sides can argue their case.

What Spotlight should be able to see is the paper trail.

What risks were identified when the loan was approved?

What security did Peterborough have?

What changed as the development ran into trouble?

 And were there points when the council could have reduced its exposure?

Those questions matter more than simply deciding which political party gets the blame.

For now we have two numbers that naturally grab attention: around £17m owed and a reported sale price of around £2.5m–£2.6m.

What we don't yet have is the number that really counts.

What has this actually cost Peterborough taxpayers?

When the sale and administrator figures are finalised, that should be a very simple question for the council to answer.

And if it isn't, we'll keep asking.

What should Spotlight dig into next who approved the original loan, or what the new buyer plans to do with the hotel?