IF anyone thinks peace has broken out over Silver Hill with the likely departure of London developers THRE then they will probably be disappointed.

It is impossible to say how this fiasco, because that is what this is, will go from here. Anyone who thinks they know what will happen is lying.

The permutations of legal action and counter-action, exits stage left and entrances stage right, is like a Brian Rix farce, and one that will be remembered for decades.

Some opponents of the scheme believe that the collapse in the THRE plan opens the way for a new ivy-clad scheme with houses and gardens (and Morris Men in the square), rather than seven-storey blocks.

But council leader Stephen Godfrey told this newspaper this week that the scheme may have to be even taller because of the increased costs caused by the delays.

It is even conceivable that THRE and the city council have been playing a monumental game of poker and will get back together again.

This newspaper has for many years supported, with reservations, Silver Hill as a good scheme, if not the perfect one. As the old saying goes, the best is the enemy of the good.

But increasingly the only sensible option is to echo the words of those 1980s pop philosophers, Orange Juice: “Rip it up and start again”.