No wonder the country is broke

[Grahams]

Just been reading about a pedestrian railway bridge that needs replacing near me. They are going to prefabricate it off site which sounds the obvious thing to do, but it is estimated to cost £11.5 million (so anyones guess what the final bill will be), and shut down for 9 to 12 months. We are talking about a pedestrian bridge, not a new motorway.

Havant Station footbridge to be replaced in £11.5m project

The bridge in Havant was built in 1947 and is reaching the "end of its structural life"

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Gecko]

Is there any reason the new bridge couldn't be built alongside the old one.
Built at whatever snails pace they can manage, then demolish the old one after the new bridge in complete?

 

[V8Druid]

been doing the same at Aber station ---- for at least the last 12 months - with a lift each end for wheelchair access .... God only knows what it'll have cost, but they had a 500 tonner there for a couple of weekends, doing lifts which weren't very big, but had to stand off such a distance
already a pedestrian foot bridge in place, which's been there as long as I can recall (probably original to the line, looking at it ).
anyone unable to use it could ask for assistance to use the level crossing at the end of the platform - has worked fine for decades and has perfect viz either way for a good half a mile plus

There's another one two miles up the line ... been waiting to see WTF they do with that .... 3 flights of brick steps at one end, built into a gert bank -- very limited usage, but!!

 

[Grahams]

Wonder how long it took and how much it cost when it was originally built? Even accounting for inflation I bet it cost less and took less time.

 

[Lancs Lad]

Just been reading about a pedestrian railway bridge that needs replacing near me. They are going to prefabricate it off site which sounds the obvious thing to do, but it is estimated to cost £11.5 million (so anyones guess what the final bill will be), and shut down for 9 to 12 months. We are talking about a pedestrian bridge, not a new motorway.

Havant Station footbridge to be replaced in £11.5m project

The bridge in Havant was built in 1947 and is reaching the "end of its structural life"

www.bbc.co.uk

Absolute joke.
Guess that's what comes of to much red tape and only a handfull of companies that will quote who can be bothered/prepared with the hassle and hence charge what they like?

 

[Grahams]

Absolute joke.
Guess that's what comes of to much red tape and only a handfull of companies that will quote who can be bothered/prepared with the hassle and hence charge what they like?

I think you are right. So much red tape very few companies willing to jump through the hoops. Those that will put up with the b s will charge a massive premium.
just before I sold my company I had an offer to tender for a job. We had done the job about ten years ago for a different management company and the request was literally a one line email asking for a quote. This time it was over a hundred pages of irrelevant b s to jump through, so I decided not to bother. After the submission date I had repeated phone calls and emails as no one would quote and the management company were going to get penalties for not fulfilling their obligations.

 

[6feetdown]

All to comply with dda too

 

[Storrsy]

Iand the management company were going to get penalties for not fulfilling their obligations.

Good serve them right. I've had similar recently. Asked to be on county council framework. Took one look at it and thought far too much unnecessary admin and compliancy so said no thanks. However it turns out they can use contractors not on the framework (me) after all and have had several jobs since!

 

[V8Druid]

had similar on council work and said thanks for the opportunity - but no thanks - too much BS ..... they then come back saying that as i was an established supplier with history, they'd continue to use us ... bloody joke - had no one else who'd do the stuff we did anyway

 

[Stroppymonkey]

had similar on council work and said thanks for the opportunity - but no thanks - too much BS ..... they then come back saying that as i was an established supplier with history, they'd continue to use us ... bloody joke - had no one else who'd do the stuff we did anyway

We are just doing a council job and not been asked for one single bit of paperwork! We have everything we need at our fingertips but it’s annoying that we haven’t even been asked

 

[Gunners]

I've got 3 jobs currently held up with bureaucracy and paperwork, and as you know, I don't do big jobs. I've come to realise the only people making money out of the construction industry now are consultants who insist on xyz being done with absolutely no risk to themselves and the cost all taken up by the poor client who just wants a new garage, or house, or a new water service onto his property.... I could go on.
Its becoming really hard to earn a living in this game now

 

[V8Druid]

Good serve them right. I've had similar recently. Asked to be on county council framework. Took one look at it and thought far too much unnecessary admin and compliancy so said no thanks. However it turns out they can use contractors not on the framework (me) after all and have had several jobs since!

had similar on council work and said thanks for the opportunity - but no thanks - too much BS ..... they then come back saying that as i was an established supplier with history, they'd continue to use us ... bloody joke - had no one else who'd do the stuff we did anyway

BWW were the same .... took on some 'consultants' to admin their work (who knew sweet FA about canals) .. Kev the local guy in charge of it all came to see me with a good ream of paperwork for me to sign and said it'd cost me 200 quid a year to register with them to be on 'their list' ... took his ream, flicked through it and promptly dropped it in the bin beside my desk ... Kev looked at me incredulous as I said thanks for all the work over the years, but I'm not jumping through all these ****ing hoops.
Was in two days later with a pile of work .... same story - supplier with history - no problems .. when could he have their needs fulfilled?
Again - no one local to do what they neede, had a decades old relationship and understanding of how they worked.
Paperwork stayed firmly in the bin

 

[groundworker]

I do some council work and I'm over the moon it's through a building firm and not direct. The builders waste god knows how much time giving 'budget costs' for every possible iteration of a project (even when they know it won't happen) - they have to put a significant margin on every job to cover all the pointless back and forth.

I've just priced a job for a different council, some fairly simple drainage work but all done to a schedule. Some of the items on there are ludicrous - I had to include for drawing up an Operations and Maintenance manual - for a french drain and some Aco channels.

I can't imagine the hoops you'd have to jump through for a bridge.

 

[6feetdown]

That's why I stopped. So many quangos they wanted you to pay for and the paperwork ridiculous.
Construction line originally was to do away with all the pre qualification stuff. Never worked, every tender you had to enter the same info everytime

 

[pettsy]

Don’t do any council work fortunately, and only a couple of “big companies”. Both places the facilities managers ring me direct, no messing with paperwork and job gets sorted. One is moving to another place soon so we’ll see what his replacement is like

 

[Furniss]

I just say thanks but no thanks to that kind of project that's mithered in paperwork - it's all in bloody French for a start, in my defence even the French find it confusing

 

[Furniss]

I had to include for drawing up an Operations and Maintenance manual - for a french drain and some Aco channels.