[Closed] Houses of Parliament £4bn repair bill

Would the sensible thing to do be relocate permanantly? Sell the property for enough cash to build the new place in say [s]Nottingham[/s]an industrial estate in Runcorn and a grammar school education for all?

As they say round these parts FTFY.

and a grammar school education for all?

That's defeats the whole point of grammar schools!

Happy with Runcorn, is HS2 going there? It is now!

and a grammar school education for all?
That's defeats the whole point of grammar schools!

Indeed.

Permanent relocation to Blackpool should be the ticket! 😆

They could repair the House Of Commons and convert it into affordable homes to sell/rent, or move the whole building to another location and start afresh.

Aren't there already a couple of other parliament buildings in the UK they could "borrow" for a bit. Okay, the locals speak with strange accents but you don't have to go far from Westminster to find the local accent a bit hard to understand for people outside London

Last time I checked Edinburgh had more English accents than England, so it'd be grand (just dont look at how well that parliament building went)

Not only would moving out of London save a fortune on the premises cost, imagine the savings from not having to pay all the civil servants the extra london weighting allowance they get.

They could use a recently closed Military base - plenty of onsite accommodation, built-in security.

Someone on the radio this morning had an utterly inspired idea, and suggested putting them all on a boat, and sending them out to sea. They would sail around the country, and occasionally be allowed to dock in various ports. 😀

Everyone who made fun of the cost of Holyrood can get in the [s]sea[/s] Thames

Are rent boys cheaper in Runcorn?

A virtual parliament with all the MPs staying in their constituencies. What could go wrong.

A virtual parliament with all the MPs staying in their constituencies. What could go wrong

Not sure our MP would be able to find it

A virtual parliament with all the MPs staying in their constituencies. What could go wrong.

But the poor MPs would need counselling, when they realise how silly they feel when heckling alone from their study at PM's Question Time, while using a web cam! 😉

For [s]4 billion[/s] 12 Billion, I'm pretty sure we could build a moonbase and relocate the ****s off world.

there're a lot of costs savings to be made on a B-Ark.

Given that the cost [b][u]will[/u][/b] escalate far and beyond the estimate I think that is pretty unjustifiable. Bulldoze and build afresh.

Qataris would pay a fortune for it.

On today's news:
£4 [u]Billion[/u] to overhaul The Palace of Westminster.
£12 [u]Million[/u] for mobile flood defences for the UK.

They should have run the articles back to back.

They could raise money through selling naming rights

The Sport Direct Palace of Tat
The Philip Green Home of Democracy
The Keith Vaz Love Palace

Outrageous! Never mind strictly & the great british bake off is back on, so I'm guessing not many will notice.

aren't they shutting it down because they've decided that all the drinking and drug abuse in there poses a risk to life?

They could have used the Olympic village accommodation for all as well .This would cut the greedy sods expenses

Full of short term tenants and spongers, it was never going to be that well looked after.

£4 billion repair bill and 6 years away from it. Shall we do a sweepstake? I reckon double both estimates.

It's the same tender process that got us a £350million swimming pool

And £125million bill to convert a stadium for London's fifth club

Did anyone mention "Barnett Consequentials"?

I assumed the idea was to give it away to a Ukrainian oligarch to convert to luxury houses.

Or has Tory housing policy changed?

I think Yunki has a point. Maybe they're going to relocate to Fabric.

Can't see the problem, one of them will probably put it on expenses.

It is a large historical building, but the cost seems pretty insane, isn't that about £1 million per person who works there? I'd love to see the BoQ for this job to see how it all adds up.

There's a bit of detail here:

http://metro.co.uk/2016/09/08/what-do-they-actually-need-to-repair-in-the-houses-of-parliament-6117391/

I think we need to put the (often justified) anti-MP rhetoric aside and remember that this is a massively important building from a cultural, historical and architectural perspective. It must be one of the most famous buildings in the world.

We, as a nation*, have let it get into a state where it is literally nearly falling down. That's pretty crap. It costs so much because we* have let it get into such a state, but it would be appalling not to do what needs to be done.

*I say 'we', because every politician has always known that the general public will always get sidelined/distracted by the 'bloody politicians feathering their own nest' debate whenever any mention of doing improvement works at the Palace of Westminster. So, it's always been bodged in, done on the margin or just ignored.

but it would be appalling not to do what needs to be done.

It would be appalling to spend 4 billion on a building that is not fit for purpose. History cannot and should not be preserved at any cost, and certainly not at the cost of damaging the present and the future.

And it would be politically good for the country as a whole to move the seat of power away from London.

But the 4 Billion would make it fit for purpose. And to build a new one would cost, I'd imagine, about 4 billion.

Moving the seat of power out of London is a reasonable point though, but it's the capital, that's where the seat of power is.

Agree with MSP - I'd keep the facade and some of the important rooms but seems to me that most of it's just shitty little offices that should be stripped rather than preserved (which I assume is what's making the projected cost so high)

... and I'm all for moving the government onto a new site outside of London - perhaps into the northern powerhouse

There isn't enough office space, committee rooms and meeting rooms for the MP's, never mind admin staff, unless the 4 billion includes expanding the building it just cannot meet the requirements.

A modern office building that meets the requirement need cost no where near that amount.

Knock it down and then re-built taller, incorporating enough studio flats to cater for the number of parliamentary seats.

Stick Big Ben tower at the top of the new building, raising its profile in modern London.

Then change the rules for MP housing/accommodation expenses, including any benefits they get from second homes near the capital.

Did anyone mention "Barnett Consequentials"?

This will be one of those things, like the Olympics, which is supposed to be "benefitting the whole UK" so there will be no Barnett consequentials.

It's just a coincidence that so many things like that are built in London.

I think we need to put the (often justified) anti-MP rhetoric aside and remember that this is a massively important building from a cultural, historical and architectural perspective. It must be one of the most famous buildings in the world.

I beg to differ. It's gopping. Indeed it's worse than that, it's fake gopping. (Re)Built in the mid 19 hundreds to ape a gothic aesthetic from half a millennia previously. It's no better than one of the mock tutor Barratt homes from the 80's. There is lots of amazing architecture in London that is truly reflective of the age in which it was built and genuinely inspiring constructions and the Palace of Westminster is not one of them.

Drag it down, sell the rubble to gullible tourists (probably not the asbestos bits) and build something considered, contemporary and fit for purpose on the same location. Probably cost half what trying to renovate the piece of junk will come to. We don't live in the middle ages anymore (even if the Victorians thought it would be nice to make it look like we did) so let's have a parliament building that represents what a modern ground breaking nation we can be. It would probably be built by Poles, right before we kick them out!

It's just a coincidence that so many things like that are built in London.

I know, just look at how Scotland was starved of investment with the Scottish Parliament buildings

Moving the seat of power out of London is a reasonable point though, but it's the capital, that's where the seat of power is.

Does that really matter Canberra is the Aussie capitol but Sydney is the place that most recognise as 'the' Australian city?

[url= http://www.ted.com/talks/pia_mancini_how_to_upgrade_democracy_for_the_internet_era ]Democracy needs a reboot!
[/url] It's an opportunity to modernise!

to build a new one would cost, I'd imagine, about 4 billion.

Unless you had to buy the site in London it would be likely to be much cheaper. Victorian buildings were not built with maintenance in mind and incorporated large quantities of unpainted ferrous fittings, added to which 150 years of retro fits, abundant asbestos so its not hard to see where the budget comes from.

The difficult bit is understanding the need for a temporary debating chamber when most cities have conference centres which would be more than up to the job (I do like the idea of the boat though (particularly a leaky one).

The idea that it needs to be in London is a bit thin (unless you live in London). Australia and the US seem to do quite well having an administrative capital and a separate principle business city. (Beaten to it above)

Perhaps we could sell the Palace of Westminster so that it can be turned into a heritage theme park 'Democracy World' perhaps

See, if we'd planned ahead, this could have been the ideal legacy use for one of the Olympic stadia, or possibly the millennium dome.