Apparently this much delayed, much needed footbridge is due for completion by the spring of this year, 13 years after it was first mooted and put forward to the local council.
The initial cost back then was around £1.5m. But now people are quoting £10m. The running joke is that it has taken long to build this tiny little footbridge than it did to build the Empire State Building back in the 1930s (which took a mere 13 months to construct, and is still standing today)
The obvious questions have been asked ad nauseum, but all those involved have simply shrugged their shoulders and kicked the can down the road for someone else to pick up.
13 years and £10m just to build a fucking bridge over a railway track! This is so systematic of how things are done in this country. Any major project is either doomed to complete failure owing to cost-overruns or unacceptable delays; or on completion the budget is blown by considerable amounts and is years behind schedule!
You only have to look at HS2, Millennium Dome, Channel Tunnel, Lower Thames Crossing to name but a mere few of projects that have gone way over budget, and yet no one seems at all accountable or responsible.
When you look at Britain from the Industrial Revolution to the mid 1950s and the things we built at the drop of a hat – ships, canals, roads/motorways, aircraft, tanks, bridges, railway networks etc etc, Most of which were completed on time and within acceptable budgets.
So what the fuck happened? Why does it take so long and so much money just to build a footbridge? Why is this country so useless at doing anything that will benefit local communities?
I suppose there are too many vested interests wanting to drag out capital projects for as long as possible in order to grab as much money as possible. And why not? Who is there to take you to task?
Just another example of the gradual decline of Britain’s standing on the global stage.
Nominated by: Technocunt
It would have been cheaper to have a helicopter on standby to fly pedestrians over the railway line..
But hang on,the trains are usually cancelled anyway so why bother with a fucking bridge in the first place?
Dozy Cunts.
23
The reason a bridge is needed is that people cannot be trusted to use a ground level crossing of the line even when fitted with warning lights and acoustic alarms. In Aylesbury there was a pedestrian crossing on a line from the time the railway was installed by the Victorians. Very handy for getting to the shops etc. in a couple of minutes rather than twenty and no incident for well over a hundred years. Recently a dozy tart didn’t notice the approaching loco on this straight-for-a-mile track. The crossing has been closed permanently.
11
It’s natures way of stopping thick cunts breeding. Leave it open.
7
If there’s no bridge the disabled can’t complain about access.
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zLook at the creatures in Parliament and go down the scales of intelligence and competence, and you end up at the local authority/planning level with some bloke with a vape pen who looks like Penfold and an obese thing with green hair and pronoun badge with a voice like a foghorn.
12
Friend of mine tells me his son recently started a job as a maintenance man in a prison. The waste and incompetence he describes is simply breathtaking.
7
That’s offensive to Penfold
0
That’s okay. He was a cunt.
0
How hard can it be to build a railway bridge? They’ve been around since the 19th century and the design must be pretty well known by now.
Unfortunately it’s the same evderywhere; too much regulation and too many ‘experts’ talking shite.
We’ve just had some motorway made ‘smart’. Work was over three times the original budget, the speed limit in places seems permanently stuck on 60 for no good reason… and they’re now spending millions more *because they didn’t install enough safety refuges* when they turned the hard shoulder into a live lane.
It’s not as if anyone in the control room pays attention. There was recently a broken down VW camper in the inside lane (formerly hard shoulder.) Speed limit on the motorway was reduced to 60, then 50, then derestricted again… just before the broken down vehicle. No idea how there wasn’t an accident.
Want to build an extension? Bat survey, even though it’s the middle of the countryside and there are plenty of other places for them to roost. Archaeological survey, find a shard of Roman pottery and suddenly you’ve got to go full TIme Team before being allowed to continue. It’s not as if it’s an undiscovered Pompeii, you twats!
Fucking useless tossers, bonfire of the red tape, with these fuckwits as the guy.
10
The Welsh Government is claiming that it costs £1,000 to put up one of the new 20mph signs. Do they have a Flabbott abacus ?
12
That’s uncharacteristically honest of them, have you ever seen the glacial progress incurred on these scams, sorry, schemes.
Jobs for the boys, and that’s not you plebs, fuck off.
7
A Flabbottabacus. Sounds like a hulking great dinosaur.
Hang on…
13
5 blokes on £20 an hour, 10 hours labour.
2 of them are sat in the van and two are outside watching (one has to be in charge of the safety barrier), another putting the sign in place.
2
I walked past some works outside Leicester Tigers’ ground last week. One guy in a digger ripping a hole, 2 guys looking into said hole and another guy 20 feet away no doubt watching porn on his phone. In the time it took me to cross the bloody road the Chinese could have built a new stadium.
2
By the time it’s finished (say 2029) the cost will have soared to £100 mill.
They should have got the Scottish government to oversee it. They’re much more effective at doing this sort of stuff.
Morning all.
11
It’s going to take even longer now that the steel will have to be foreign sourced because of the closure of Port Talbot’s blast furnaces. If ever a country has had short sighted, irresponsible and run by accountants for profit’s sake governments it’s this one.
12
Taxes go to what is called ‘The Consolidated Fund’ and it’s a government piggy bank. The council tax you pay goes there and your local town council gets part of your council tax contribution back. Part, not all, part.
The government keeps the rest to squander on vanity projects and ‘administration’, some of which goes in their pockets via bribes and kickbacks.
Fuck them all to hell, treating us like thick cash cows.
10
What you describe above applies to local business rates only, not domestic council tax.
100% of council tax is retained and spent the raising council, and is topped up by central government.
3
Are you saying all the council tax my town pays goes only to that town council and no other department ?
I’ve emailed my local council office but, quelle fucking surprise, they’re finished for the week and claim to respond on Monday.
Hard life innit.
1
I’ve done a little digging, taking the mean from the 8 bands of CT (2,500) and multiplying by the number of households again, roughly 2,500, gives up 6 million.
That ain’t being spent in my town of 5k inhabitants so where is it going?
The District Council, who are situated in a city, with 114k inhabitants and 57k households so applying the same criteria of 57k x 2500 gives up 142 million.
Now maths isn’t my strong point but the calcs indicate a colossal amount of money that is going exactly where ?
3
Council tax is set by each individual authority and authorities are able to retain all of the funding raised from council tax in their area to support their budget.
2
https://youtu.be/THCOJL3rnUE?si=J7dchIZx64mwUn87
What about this ?
0
Skip to 32 minutes if uninterested in anything else.
0
They built the bridge over the river Kwai in less time for free by our soldiers. We’ve the same free labour coming to live here. There’s the chance to complete it, instead of giving them cozy places to live for free.
9
You think that’s bad Techno?
The 11th century bridge at Avignon, France was thrown together in good time, then most of it collapsed when the River Rhone flooded. Only four of the twenty two arches remain.
That’s French builders for you. Probably built it while pissed on Beaujolais Nouveau.
5
How could anyone get pissed on Beaujolais Nouveau Geordie? It tastes like paraffin.
4
So you’re partial to a paraffin or two, are you arfur?
Tell me, are you a Grand Cru connoisseur or more of a Tesco own brand man?
I’m a methylated spirit drinker myself.
4
Walked into that one didn’t I Geordie? Never fancied meths myself. The blue stuff that you get retail is contaminated with pyridine amongst other things and will rot your bollocks. I use it in the windscreen washers.
2
Is there no law in the UK covering the misuse of public funds?
There should be, and anyone responsible for wasting public money should be prosecuted and personally bankrupted.
No more hospital trusts employing useless diversity officers or buying artwork instead of providing cancer treatment.
No more police forces spending other people’s hard earned money on covering their cars with rainbows.
No more schools filling their libraries with books promoting gays and transvestites.
No more councils chucking away millions on vanity projects.
You could even extend the law to prosecute whoever signs off on benefit payments without carrying out the correct checks.
10 million quid for a fucking bridge!!
You could build a few hundred apartments for that for the ex servicemen sleeping rough on the streets.
8
This sort of shit prevails where local council administration flip-flops. Tories propose and approve, but before work starts the fucking Lib Dems take over and decide it is not a priority and it is scrapped in favour of a drop-in centre for smack heads. Tories come back and resurrect the idea but too late…Scrapped again in favour of a mobile STD workshop and information centre for young mums. Tories back again but we have left the EU so funding has to be sourced from elsewhere; more delay…Easy to see there 13 years can disappear. The system is fucked.
6
Sounds about the strength of it TTC
1
One has to factor in the opinions of the alphabet people and their supporters. So many groups and genders it’s no surprise that the erection of a simple bridge could take so long. Things like transphobic step spacing, colour of bridge clashing with various hair colours, hurty handrail positioning for tri sexual lesbian trans women. In truth it’s a fucking miracle anything gets built before it’s obsolete. No wonder I’m a grumpy old cunt.
6
Back in the day you hired a company got them to build it and job done.
These days you’ve got the initial consultation, health and safety overhead, the tender process, additional consultations as nauseam. Environmental, local impact, heritage, etc etc fucking etc.
Then you have the inability to plan anything, the redesign x 10, the original company going bust, policing for the inevitable protests and inflation over the 10 years it took the cunts to start the job.
3
Fuckin Cunts that run this country………grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68024233
1
There is nothing of any interest in Theale. Did a couple of jobs on one of the numerous industrial estates there years ago.
Beenham, which is just down the road had a wolf sanctuary, which I used to go to when I was feeling a bit down.
1
What you guys aren’t factoring in, is the 4 hours every day filling in permits to work, to work at height, hot works,electrical, confined spaces.
After that Carpal tunnel syndrome kicks in and you need a week off work..
3
It’s very simple why everything in this declining country takes so long and costs so much to do .
Far to many chiefs and no where near enough Indians.
Layer upon layer of management/ middle management/ lower management/ contractors/ consultants all looking to protect their arses if anything should go wrong.
See Po scandal for an example…
Where I worked was a perfect example, even the foreman had a subordinate…FFS.
Back in the day the gaffer was prepared to take responsibility for the whole thing. Now it is design/build/ by fucking committee with no individual responsibility.
Again, politicians set the low benchmark for this to be copied….
Think on, could this country now build a 21st century version of Concord ( I did not include the “e” on the end) as this was the only french contribution….!
5
and the computer and the human (just about) operator has a tendency to say ‘no’.
1
Spot on. They’ll be one engineer, 10 project managers, h&s team, legal team etc.
2
No
1
Come to Leicester, we’ve got plenty of Indians too.
1
The brIdge will be opened by a black bloke in a frilly frock, who goes under the name of Alesia Jolson, from her/his great, great, greatest grandfather.
2
Health and fucking safety. Thank fuck my site work is done.
2
Theale is a soulless dump on the M4 by Reading, once probably a beautiful village, suprised any fucker would want to get off the train there now.
1
Reading is bloody awful place where you are constantly tapped for money by druggies. Putin should aim his missiles there; it would be a service to humanity. We should send him a list of the shithole places in Britain.
0
Britain used to be good at building things.
Now we have a land of morons. Just take my colleagues at work for example, when they are literally in the same room having a conversation , they are:
a) unable to keep up with the conversation
b) cannot remember what was said
c) misunderstand the tenet of what was just said and go off on daft tangents
d) ignore what they agreed even if I write it down for them
This drives me completely crazy and my only solace is a nightly bucket of wine to forget all about them.
My theory is that my team are a microcosm of Britain today.
1
Do you work in NHS administration?
2
No, in Data Engineering and BI. Oh, the irony.
0
Didn’t we also build two hugely expensive aircraft carriers that were so big they couldn’t be docked in the places originally intended!
Moreover weren’t there some major issues with both of them in terms of not being fit for purpose. And that we don’t have enough service staff to cover all roles on both boats!
Joined up thinking, fails yet again.
1
The cunts wanted to save money so they didn’t fit steam catapults. So they need to use yank jump jets at 5x the price of conventional jets. These arseholes think it makes sound financial sense to spend an extra £1 to save 10p. Well, why not? After all, it’s not their money.
1
https://alchetron.com/cdn/Idiocracy-images-a557e512-32a9-4520-ac38-7b376389178.jpg
From the film Idiocracy. Where they can’t build anything because they are so thick.
0