Anyone fancy a £3 BILLION restoration project?

[Flyfisher]

:shock: :shock: :shock:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30137334


Good job we don't have to pay for that sort of thing. Er, hang on . . . .

 

[a twig]

Better crack on with my stonemasonry apprenticeship - all aboard the gravy train!

It'll be typical government work - price 3x what it would be to anyone else. Ker-CHING!

 

[plasticpigeon]

I'm sure that will be a quote from some MP's cousin's construction company.

 

[malcolm]

Throughout the UK the building industry has an annual turnover of nearly £150 billion with conservation and restoration of historic buildings estimated to account for approximately £3.5 billion (2.3%), of which £1.7 billion (1.1%) is on listed buildings

(From http://www.thebcc.ac.uk/pages/the_need_for_traditional_building_skills/building_conservation_maintenance/default.aspx )
Good luck finding craftsmen if this goes ahead.

On the other hand

repair, maintenance and improvement is by far the largest type of work undertaken and contributes approximately 50% of the total or £75 billion per annum

So maybe they'll spend most of it on damp injection, underpinning and ruining the interior.

 

[xanthe]

I used to work in there (not as an MP and sadly no title ) and it is the most incredible building. I don't mind the money if it's going on proper crafts like stone-masonry etc. I do if it's on swanky new chairs for the MPs offices.

 

[Penners]

Good job we don't have to pay for that sort of thing. Er, hang on . . . .

I reckon your project must have run that pretty close by now, FF! :wink:

 

[Zebra]

I used to work in there

So did I! I was a waitress in the members' dining room around 1995. Used to pinch their petit fours!

 

[Penners]

Give the reputation of some MPs, I'm surprised you didn't get anything pinched yourself. :shock:

 

[Flyfisher]

Good job we don't have to pay for that sort of thing. Er, hang on . . . .

I reckon your project must have run that pretty close by now, FF! :wink:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I'd like to think it would be a lot closer to being fully finished if it was anywhere near that cost!

 

[LadyArowana]

Good job we don't have to pay for that sort of thing. Er, hang on . . . .

I reckon your project must have run that pretty close by now, FF! :wink:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I'd like to think it would be a lot closer to being fully finished if it was anywhere near that cost!

That depends, even a billion doesn't guarantee things don't get bound up in red tape, this one is at least finished.... now, some others still stuck in court limbo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_(building)

 

[plasticpigeon]

Oh yes, that's been in the news recently hasn't it?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

looking through what's available online about what "needs" doing at Westminster, it's clear that this story has been spun as being about building repairs, whereas it's actually about renewing the services. There's an interesting breakdown of the alleged £30million / annum routine maintenance costs on page 26 of this:
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-commission/PED-Modernisation-Report-Oct12.pdf
for example.
Annual staff costs for maintenance of around £7.5 million? taking £35,000 as a generous average wage (it seems to be the going rate for conservation officers in London - Westminster City Council are advertising for two at the moment), equates to a full-time maintenance team of 215 people, which clearly isn't the case.
Replacement insurance value of £1.7 billion? even allowing for under-insurance, it seems it would be cheaper to knock it down and build a replica.

There is some ulterior motive behind the way the story is being reported. But then we live in a world where the D***y M**l can report proposals to use sheep's wool insulation at the HoP as a "bizarre plan" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...of-Parliament-WOOL-stop-hot-air-escaping.html

 

[Penners]

it would be cheaper to knock it down and build a replica.

Fantasy land thought process: if you were to knock down and HoP and start again, would you actually build a replica? I recently visited the Scottish Parliament, and although I know that it cost a squillion quid more than it was supposed to, I must say that the interior is wonderful.

The actual debating chamber is worthy of a 21st century parliament, with a desk for every MSP (sit where you like and put your identity card into the automatic desktop recognition terminal), push-button voting, individual microphones (each with a Speaker-controlled cutoff!) and a general air of being a civilised, sophisticated forum, rather than the bear-pit that is the HoC.

The exterior of the building is, in my uneducated opinion, a confused mish-mash of too-clever-by-half ideas that didn't come off, but I do recommend taking the interior tour if you're ever in Edinburgh.

 

[xanthe]

My issue with the SP chamber is that it looks great now, but a bit like those shiny doors that are all the rage in modern kitchens, they'll look pretty awful once they've been kicked about a bit and the replacement costs are likely to be :shock: .

The benches in the Commons look just fine with a lot of dents.

Zebra, my boss was/is a Peer. Our meetings were always held in the Peers Tea Room - spent a lot of time admiring the wallpaper as he had to run back and forth voting a lot during them. The cake is excellent, but there were a lot of raised eyebrows when they suddenly produced a menu for different types of tea and mutterings about new-fangled nonsense and tea being China or Indian, end of.

My 5 year-old daughter is convinced that the HoC is really Hogwarts.

 

[Penners]

Zebra, my boss was/is a Peer.

Zebra - have you been hiding something from us, Your Ladyship?*


*OK, OK, I know there would have to be another comma for my deliberate misunderstanding to be valid, but why let grammar stand in the way of a good tease?

 

[plasticpigeon]

I am going to the palace of Westminster for afternoon tea on Monday!

 

[Penners]

Pah! I'm going to Southwold Pier.

So we'll both be experiencing piers.


(That would make a better verbal pub than a written one).

 

[Feltwell]

(That would make a better verbal pub than a written one).

Was that typed after being in the pub by any chance?

 

[Penners]

Not guilty. It was, however, typed very soon after the cataract operation that I've just had.



Phew - I think I got away with that one.

 

[Flyfisher]

You could have also got away with it by claiming to have used a iPad - bloomin' predictive spell checking! :evil:

BTW, have you heard that the chap who invented predictive text has died? His funfair will be hello on Sundial.