BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[BoldonLad]

We are still paying for that even if it is 100% cancelled today.
I read a report saying that it will cost more to cancel and make good than to continue as currently planned.

Quite. My point being it is good(?) example of where Taxes are wasted/squandered.

 

[BoldonLad]

Cancelling it won't solve the problem of under-capacity on the railways.

Whichever way you slice it, it's a monumental cock-up of historical proportions. In essence, it seems that if there's been a chance to screw up any step of the process, no matter how large or small, the opportunity to screw it up has been taken with skill and enthusiasm.

Different times, and different terrain, but the original Paris-Lyon TGV construction cost under £4bn adjusted for inflation.

Seems like a good reason to keep Governament as far as possible from just about anything. 😊

 

[Pblakeney]

Quite. My point being it is good(?) example of where Taxes are wasted/squandered.

The idea was good and solid. The implementation was as a bad as bad can be.
As with every major infrastructure development in this country whether public or private. Overdue, over budget, reduced scope...

 

[Pross]

The idea was good and solid. The implementation was as a bad as bad can be.
As with every major infrastructure development in this country whether public or private. Overdue, over budget, reduced scope...

2012 Olympics disagrees (although there's some doubt on budget, I guess it depends which budget you compare it to). Private schemes are often within budget and programme. The problem with budgets is you are trying to work out the cost of something about 10 years or more before it will be built.

 

[Pblakeney]

2012 Olympics disagrees (although there's some doubt on budget, I guess it depends which budget you compare it to). Private schemes are often within budget and programme. The problem with budgets is you are trying to work out the cost of something about 10 years or more before it will be built.

Hmmm. AI would seem to disagree and I can't be bothered checking. One for the AI Fails thread?
"No, the 2012 Olympics were not a financial success; they significantly exceeded their budget, costing around $18 billion instead of the planned $5 billion. Overall, the Olympics have historically been a financial burden for host cities."

 

[Pross]

Hmmm. AI would seem to disagree and I can't be bothered checking. One for the AI Fails thread?
"No, the 2012 Olympics were not a financial success; they significantly exceeded their budget, costing around $18 billion instead of the planned $5 billion. Overall, the Olympics have historically been a financial burden for host cities."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/20041426 the official verdict. As I said, it depends what you count as the budget - the initial budget in the bid was way smaller than the approved budget in 2007. As someone who has to do cost estimates on significantly smaller schemes I can understand the challenges but it does amaze me how optimistic a lot of initial budgets are. I guess they are looking to make a scheme appear attractive but they must realise that at some point they are going to have egg on their faces. Occasionally you get massive, unexpected uplifts such as in 2020 with the impacts of the pandemic and Brexit creating huge inflation in construction and the first thing clients seem to do is strip out any contingency but even allowing for that initial budgets seem to bear no resemblance to reality.

 

[Pblakeney]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/20041426 the official verdict. As I said, it depends what you count as the budget - the initial budget in the bid was way smaller than the approved budget in 2007. As someone who has to do cost estimates on significantly smaller schemes I can understand the challenges but it does amaze me how optimistic a lot of initial budgets are. I guess they are looking to make a scheme appear attractive but they must realise that at some point they are going to have egg on their faces. Occasionally you get massive, unexpected uplifts such as in 2020 with the impacts of the pandemic and Brexit creating huge inflation in construction and the first thing clients seem to do is strip out any contingency but even allowing for that initial budgets seem to bear no resemblance to reality.

I cannot disagree with any of that.
Sort of underlines my original point though.