Newspapers used to have decent fact checkers who wouldn't allow total nonsense to be printed. I don't know what happened to them.
They've got a base.
This crap sells papers.
Expect more confected graphs in the FT showing the UK is shit/bottom of everything, and be suspicious accordingly.
Untrue. We already established we lead the world in infrastructure construction … costs.
You know nothing about infrastructure so you're totally unqualified to comment on it.
I have spent my whole live working in the sector.
Er, the very reason we can't take you on faith is that you are in the infrastructure industry and benefit from it.
You'd say just the same if a schoolteacher told you to piss off when you queried educational practice.
There is serious prima facie evidence that there is something very wrong with UK infrastructure and the prices charged. What the reasons are is a very good question, but it's not one going to be answered by simply telling people they are too stupid and naive and unknowledgeable.
He’s a total bristler.
He’s the internet meme of a finger poised between two red buttons. One says, “more infra is good” The other says, “people calling for more/better infra are woke”.
We lost our on a contract to supply to a BEIS funded r and d project a couple of years back. The company that won the job absolutely rinsed the BEIS funded customer. So far as we could work out the main expenditure of the project was just going out in salaries to a bunch of jobs for the boys.
My strong suspicion is that all the costs are everything but the actual infrastructure. And a culture of layering* - where a contract is sub contracted repeatedly.
This was the case in the old style US space industry where costs and inflation were getting demented.
*yes I know what it implies
Here’s a good thread on how the planning system inflates costs, by a (former) road designed.
The buses etc stay downstairs. The new surface is pedestrianised/cycling. The driving shops will need rebuilding a bit, so you enter through what were the upper floors…
Edinburgh toyed with that idea 75 years ago and revisited it in 2002.
Looks like the main reason we can't get anything done here is a mahoosive circus consisting of pressure groups, NIMBYs, lawyers and consultants around JR of big projects leading to ridiculously costly and untimely proposals
Yes, as usual Pulpstar you come the closest.
We have all of that plus a very interfering and centralised government that constantly pauses, delays, cancels, restarts and chops and changes policy on top, all of which escalates costs and delays. Plus, we have a huge legacy of environmental, planning and safety regulation, which has been built up over decades, and a whole industry has been built up around, which is overcooked, not all relevant or up to date and provides a fulcrum around which objections can ossify. We add to that all the time. Plus, the UK is a congested country where land and property is expensive, and difficult to repurpose on top, which escaltes build costs.
However, we shouldn't be too amiss. Berlin Brandenburg Airport was a complete disaster, effectively rebuilt twice and over 10 years late, Californian High Speed Rail is currently being completely botched and is hugely overbudget - and going from nowhere to nowhere- whilst the Sydney Opera House and Montreal and Athens Olympics were both hugely costly and the last two white elephants in the long run. By contrast, the London 2012 Olympics was a huge success, with a great legacy, and Crossrail - although a bit late - has exceeded all expectations in use. Heathrow 3rd runway was all ready to go and would have been brilliant were it not for JR.
We have a problem with infrastructure commissioning not delivery. We are actually pretty darn good on the latter, which is why the world comes to us for advice.
FWIW, I'm a big project infrastructure consultant and well known in that industry.
Looks like the main reason we can't get anything done here is a mahoosive circus consisting of pressure groups, NIMBYs, lawyers and consultants around JR of big projects leading to ridiculously costly and untimely proposals
Yes, as usual Pulpstar you come the closest.
We have all of that plus a very interfering and centralised government that constantly pauses, delays, cancels, restarts and chops and changes policy on top, all of which escalates costs and delays. Plus, we have a huge legacy of environmental, planning and safety regulation, which has been built up over decades, and a whole industry has been built up around, which is overcooked, not all relevant or up to date and provides a fulcrum around which objections can ossify. We add to that all the time. Plus, the UK is a congested country where land and property is expensive, and difficult to repurpose on top, which escaltes build costs.
However, we shouldn't be too amiss. Berlin Brandenburg Airport was a complete disaster, effectively rebuilt twice and over 10 years late, Californian High Speed Rail is currently being completely botched and is hugely overbudget - and going from nowhere to nowhere- whilst the Sydney Opera House and Montreal and Athens Olympics were both hugely costly and the last two white elephants in the long run. By contrast, the London 2012 Olympics was a huge success, with a great legacy, and Crossrail - although a bit late - has exceeded all expectations in use. Heathrow 3rd runway was all ready to go and would have been brilliant were it not for JR.
We have a problem with infrastructure commissioning not delivery. We are actually pretty darn good on the latter, which is why the world comes to us for advice.
FWIW, I'm a big project infrastructure consultant and well known in that industry.
In my area we have HS2 being constructed and also large amounts of housebuilding in all directions. Not much sign of nimbyism. But no matter how many new properties are built, the prices never seem to come down.
I think Truss was and is a nutter. But she was right about one thing: Britain needs growth.
It is precisely because we don’t have growth, and an ageing demographic, that our taxes are rising - via bracket creep - from the low 30s % of GDP where Britain has traditionally been - to the high 30s - ie “German levels”.
Albeit without the commensurate quality of public services.
People say, wrongly, that Truss’s position on growth is just a truism. Well no, not quite. There’s actually very little consensus behind “growth” in modern day Britain.
Voters - and most commentators - are more motivated by small boats, nimbyism, the NHS, and the cost of living. Fair enough, but they fail to realise that without growth, most of these problems get worse.
What kind of growth? Labour supply or productivity?
Both?
We need GDP growth per capita. We need to stop talking about GDP without the denominator.
Labour supply going up so long as construction matches, with sufficient proportionate new roads, new houses, new schools, hospitals etc to match population growth is absolutely fine, but we've not had that.
Labour supply going up, but GDP per capita going down, and no investment, is not a success even if it records GDP going up.
The only way GDP capita can fall when the labour supply is increasing is if the number of dependents increases by a larger percentage.
So, in almost all cases, boosting the labour supply will see GDP per capita increase.
Of course it can fall even with out dependents. Its simple maths. If gdp per capita is say 50k, add 5 million people only generating 25k gdp. GDP goes up.
see worked example below
50 million people gdp = 2,500,000,000 gdp per capita = 50k
add 5 million people each generating 25k gdp extra gdp rises by 125,000,000 to a total of 2,625,000,000 but gdp per capita is now 47.72k
Comments
https://www.cobbletales.com/unbuilt-edinburgh/
Neither made to a really concrete proposal.
I’ll get my hat on the way out…
We have all of that plus a very interfering and centralised government that constantly pauses, delays, cancels, restarts and chops and changes policy on top, all of which escalates costs and delays. Plus, we have a huge legacy of environmental, planning and safety regulation, which has been built up over decades, and a whole industry has been built up around, which is overcooked, not all relevant or up to date and provides a fulcrum around which objections can ossify. We add to that all the time. Plus, the UK is a congested country where land and property is expensive, and difficult to repurpose on top, which escaltes build costs.
However, we shouldn't be too amiss. Berlin Brandenburg Airport was a complete disaster, effectively rebuilt twice and over 10 years late, Californian High Speed Rail is currently being completely botched and is hugely overbudget - and going from nowhere to nowhere- whilst the Sydney Opera House and Montreal and Athens Olympics were both hugely costly and the last two white elephants in the long run. By contrast, the London 2012 Olympics was a huge success, with a great legacy, and Crossrail - although a bit late - has exceeded all expectations in use. Heathrow 3rd runway was all ready to go and would have been brilliant were it not for JR.
We have a problem with infrastructure commissioning not delivery. We are actually pretty darn good on the latter, which is why the world comes to us for advice.
FWIW, I'm a big project infrastructure consultant and well known in that industry.
see worked example below
50 million people gdp = 2,500,000,000 gdp per capita = 50k
add 5 million people each generating 25k gdp extra gdp rises by 125,000,000 to a total of 2,625,000,000 but gdp per capita is now 47.72k