One sniff of a potential story led Medway Messenger man Alan Watkins on a trail that revealed the local authority spent close to £500,000 paving the way for a few seconds of Tour de France action as the race passed through Kent.

Kent County Council claims the event brought around £3m-worth of media publicity, and £16m of spending.

But the local Medway Messenger found out that the breakaway Medway unitary council spent around £500,000 for the few seconds of excitement caused as the racing bikes whipped through Strood, Gillingham, Chatham and Rochester.

The original cost of hosting the event was said to be £25,000.

But after councillors and officers went to Paris and London to see various stages of the preparations… and the budget rose to £88,000.

Local government reporter, Alan Watkins, smelled a story when senior politicians and officers began to distance themselves from the event.

Then road repair gangs suddenly appeared on the streets that the race would use.

The costs were mounting.

In an extraordinary period of eight days the transport portfolio holder, Phil Filmer, first admitted the necessary road repairs had cost £194,000 to fill in any cracks wider than the 10mm width of the racing bikes’ tyres.

The following day the director, Robin Cooper, confirmed the expenses, and reminded the paper it had given plenty of favourable coverage to the race.

Assistant news editor Lee Winter made a Freedom of Information request for the total costs of the event, which came back saying the bill now included road repairs, publicity, marshalls, and public platforms. The bill had by then risen to a staggering £482,890.

By Friday evening, the council was admitting it had overlooked a few more thousand pounds for 12 park and ride buses, and the finance portfolio holder, Alan Jarrett, who is also deputy council leader, admitted: “I don’t know why the budget was so adrift.”

Council officials, meanwhile, had no idea what the value of the event had been to Medway. It was a good day out, and the VIPs had free food and drinks provided by a local pub.

Yet other residents are demanding to know when their roads will be repaired. Some potholes have been ignored for six years.

Reporter Watkins said: “For a council that has reserves reduced to nothing, its spending more tightly restricted by Government than any other council in England, and no allocated race budget when its spending plans were approved in March, it’s going to be interesting to see what services are hit by cuts. It already faced a £6m forecast overspend.”