2012 Olympics - more costs soar.....

[andy400]

Apparently, the projected cost of building the 'Aquatic Centre' has risen from £125 million to £500 million!

WTF!? Quadrupled!? How!?

Yet more proof that the intial projections were utter, very low, bullst to reduce objection to the bid?

[Stig]

andy400 said:

Apparently, the projected cost of building the 'Aquatic Centre' has risen from £125 million to £500 million!

WTF!? Quadrupled!? How!?

Yet more proof that the intial projections were utter, very low, bullst to reduce objection to the bid?

And then there's the 'gentleman's agreement' between the large civil engineering co's that they were supposed to be getting their knuckles wrapped for (and didn't).

Same thing every time with Govt. contract. Bid low to win it, then triple costs during project. Shaft taxpayer again with inept budget management - job done.

[plasticpig]

It's actually far more complex than that. There can be a massive difference from the original architect design to the actual construction. Architects, main contractors and their subcontractors are only willing to spend so much money putting a bid in that they may well lose.

[Tangent Police]

Stop it all now.

[Skywalker]

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in.

Thnaks God there was someone competent like an i politician responsible part of the process to ensure the best decision was made.

[plasticpig]

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

[elster]

plasticpig said:

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

Yes there would!

That is how a lot of business is done in the private sector.

[plasticpig]

elster said:

plasticpig said:

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

Yes there would!

That is how a lot of business is done in the private sector.

I know. But it isn't done like that in the construction industry. You would be talking thousand's of man hours just to get an accurate quote on a large project.

[dxg]

plasticpig said:

elster said:

plasticpig said:

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

Yes there would!

That is how a lot of business is done in the private sector.

I know. But it isn't done like that in the construction industry. You would be talking thousand's of man hours just to get an accurate quote on a large project.

There wouldn't have been any "affordable" bidders in that case. Given their understanding of the nature of such jobs, pricing the cost risk into the front end would never have generated the headline figures the politicans needed to get the project approved. Scottish Parliament anyone? £40m tenders; c. £400m final account. Everyone knew it was a several hundred million project, but politically it couldn't have been seen to be that.

[s3fella]

Imagine how expensive it would have been if the price of steel had not plummeted in the last 12 months!

[youngsyr]

dxg said:

plasticpig said:

elster said:

plasticpig said:

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

Yes there would!

That is how a lot of business is done in the private sector.

I know. But it isn't done like that in the construction industry. You would be talking thousand's of man hours just to get an accurate quote on a large project.

There wouldn't have been any "affordable" bidders in that case. Given their understanding of the nature of such jobs, pricing the cost risk into the front end would never have generated the headline figures the politicans needed to get the project approved. Scottish Parliament anyone? £40m tenders; c. £400m final account. Everyone knew it was a several hundred million project, but politically it couldn't have been seen to be that.

Doesn't that strike you as wrong though: the people won't accept the true cost of it, so let's just pull the wool over their eyes until it's too late.

It's just more "We know what's best for you and will do it regardless of what you believe" by the government.

[youngsyr]

plasticpig said:

elster said:

plasticpig said:

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

Yes there would!

That is how a lot of business is done in the private sector.

I know. But it isn't done like that in the construction industry. You would be talking thousand's of man hours just to get an accurate quote on a large project.

Surely it doesn't need to be that accurate though, I bet most people would be ok with them getting to within 20% of the tender? This bid low and then rip the balls off of them once passed the point of no return is just ludicrous.

[Skywalker]

A margin could have been costed in - and perhaps a caveat for 'exceptional inflation'.

Other than that I see no reason (and the same is true of MoD procurement) to allow Government to hose my tax money up the wall the way they do.

[Hobo]

plasticpig said:

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

What utter twaddle.

Pricing such a project is not an issue as neither 125m or 500m is that large, nor is to some extent providing a fixed price/gmp for doing so. And penantly clauses as standard practice so would only scare off those who should be quoting to start with.

The only problem I see is time to prepare everything as the nature of the works meant it had to be fast tracked, hence the blank cheque approach which seems to be adopted.

[jeff m]

Maybe Brazil would like two...

Auction it off to the highest bidder, Chicago might buy it

[elster]

plasticpig said:

elster said:

plasticpig said:

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

Yes there would!

That is how a lot of business is done in the private sector.

I know. But it isn't done like that in the construction industry. You would be talking thousand's of man hours just to get an accurate quote on a large project.

Maybe your construction industry is done differently to the large industrial builds I have worked on.

I know all the really big industrial stuff is fixed price. Maybe the smaller stuff isn't. I wouldn't know.

[grumbledoak]

£500M for a swimming pool that the vast majority of the population, even the local population, won't be able to get to.

All too easy to predict. Indeed, many here and elsewhere did.

[FourWheelDrift]

andy400 said:

Apparently, the projected cost of building the 'Aquatic Centre' has risen from £125 million to £500 million!

WTF!? Quadrupled!? How!?

Yet more proof that the intial projections were utter, very low, bullst to reduce objection to the bid?

Thames Water put their prices up.

[plasticpig]

elster said:

plasticpig said:

elster said:

plasticpig said:

Skywalker said:

The wise - and best - position would have been to sign the bidders into a fixed price contract based on their costed quote for the job - with penalty clauses built in. .

There wouldn't be any bidders on such a basis.

Yes there would!

That is how a lot of business is done in the private sector.

I know. But it isn't done like that in the construction industry. You would be talking thousand's of man hours just to get an accurate quote on a large project.

Maybe your construction industry is done differently to the large industrial builds I have worked on.

I know all the really big industrial stuff is fixed price. Maybe the smaller stuff isn't. I wouldn't know.

So none of these contracts include any scope for variations?

[plasticpig]

grumbledoak said:

£500M for a swimming pool that the vast majority of the population, even the local population, won't be able to get to.

All too easy to predict. Indeed, many here and elsewhere did.

Accoring to Reuters its £250m http://in.reuters.com/article/worldOfSport/idINInd...