Published: Thursday, 8th January, 2009 10:45am
Politicians should look at getting value for money over new Forth bridge
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IT was recently published that the Scottish Government"s financial advisor, Professor John Kay, berated the costing of the proposed bridge.
He is quoted deriding the project in the strongest terms and expressed astonishment that Scotland could contemplate building any bridge with an initial costing in excess of £4 billion.
That was, he pointed out, more than four times the final cost of the much longer Oresund bridge/tunnel link between Denmark and Sweden and more than 10 times the cost of France"s iconic Millau crossing of the Tarn gorge.
And, if anyone thinks the initial costing of a unique structure in the UK – think the Holyrood parliament or Portcullis House, home to MPs" offices in London – is likely to emerge as the final bill, they should think again.
Perhaps the warring politicians should look to getting value for money, given that bridges of this size are being built for between £500 and £800 million, not the £2340 million they expect for this bridge.
The Scottish Commonwealth Games are priced at £380 million. Under proper management, we could have a bridge, pay for the games and still have more than £1000 million left.
Bob Hamilton,
55 Halbeath Road, Dunfermline
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R. Alder
(Unregistered User)
Jan 15 09 22:10
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If we did not apply namby panby health and safety regulations and used good old common sense, as was used in the past, all these projects could be done for a fraction of the cost and take far less time.
In the "old days" people took care of themselves without all the protective material available today and work got done.
R. Alder 81 KY11 9GG. 01383820926
R. Alder
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Jan 15 09 22:19
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Get rid of the Health And Safety Executive, which is wielding excessive power over all aspects of production and other work in the country with its namby pamby regulations. In past times common sense was used and if anything went wrong, it was quite often because of some stupidity. This would cut the cost of practically everything to reasonable figures, instead of the inflated estimates accepted today.
TonyB
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Aug 7 09 10:15
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A tunnel system would be a far better option than another bridge, perhaps more expensive but at least you wouldn't see it closing in bad weather or speed restrictions in a breeze......
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