[Closed] Your local council project fails

Well a whole load of Edinburgh schools had to be closed for emergency remedial works as in one of them a wall fell down and it turned out the brickies for the whole lot didn't know how to build walls.

You've really got to put in some effort to achieve 1200 issues in one building.

How is this even possible?

Welsh Assembly more than local council, but google.  Circuit  of Wales.

A £430m project to build a race track in the middle of no where.

They managed to con a few million out of us in development costs, had 3 proposals turned down and finally collapsed with £30m of debt.

They promised despite the massive cost it could turn a profit by nicking MotoGP from Silverstone and create about 2000 jobs or something.

To hive an idea of how crooked their plan was - Silverstone, which is, you know, kind of famous and has long contacts in place with F1 and MotoGP can’t turn a profit and was also for sale for a number of years for £33m, but even at that they couldn’t find a buyer.

The WA has form for this, not far from BPW was once a massive dry ski slope with lifts and everything, it closed after a year at a massive cost, sadly they pulled down the lifts long before anything had thought of BPW.

Woking council has borrowed half a billion or so, with no repayments starting before thirty years, so they can build a massive tower, and  turn the town into Croydon. This is on top of the leisure centre that has always lost money, the new school that opened late because it was falling apart, or my favourite, the (now gone) swimming pool on the first floor, that leaked, a lot. Oh, and unsurprisingly, Woking has one of the highest council taxes in the country.

You have to go a long way to beat Edinburgh city council.  Schools as mentioned above ( although that was PFI)

The trams

The statutory notice scandal - now 20 years.  MY own case is now in its 16th year without being resolved and losses to the council of 2 million just on my building.

The mix of arrogance, incompetence, corruption and hubris is very nasty

Whilst not on the same scale as the examples above, the one that immediately springs to mind is the "B of the bang" sculpture outside the City of Manchester stadium. It was stunning too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_of_the_Bang

Highland Council.

Roads.

Most depressing is the fact that we used to be quite good at roads.  Maintenance was done before they fell apart.

Northamptonshire CC analysis in The Times and the first LA for many years to declare poor finances under s114 of the Local Government Finance Act

Uselesshippy - do you mean this development?

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/victoria-square-everything-thats-happened-13614193

I think every council fails to understand development, despite years of 'practice'. Ours is the leisure centre that refuses to be built. The plans continually get chipped away and the longer the delay, the less money the council has to fund it.

http://melkshamnews.com/2018/09/12/campus-is-behind-schedule-over-budget-but-wiltshire-council-pledge-commitment-to-delivering-project/

But at least we have some nice paving at the front entrance at a cost of £660k.

http://melkshamnews.com/2017/10/25/market-place-is-finally-finished-and-the-market-is-returning/

I used to work on ‘big projects’ for councils...In my experience they’re rarely equipped to cope with the complexities of a major project. Private sector companies doing project after project can afford to employ dedicated project managers, contract lawyers, project accountants etc, who gain experience as they move from project to project. Councils tend to have rates of pay that can’t compete with that, and you get staff managing projects without this huge team to back them up (if you’re lucky there’s a really good project manager brought in, but not all the ancillary support from others). If they try to buy in support, they get crucified for spending money on consultants (and if they’re really unlucky the council can’t specify their needs well enough to get consultants that actually do what is needed...).

Put the Davids of local government project management up against the Goliaths of the private sector builders, lawyers, finance people...it's not surprising it sometimes (often?) doesn’t end well.

Add into this mix the changing funding situation in local government, where project money gets pulled or stalled and skilled staff don’t know if there’ll be another one to move on to, and local councils are always going to struggle to have the depth of experience and skill that the private sector can cultivate.

I’m not defending incompetence, and that certainly exists, but I think there’s often a handful of overworked and overwhelmed staff struggling to do their best at something they’re not really equipped or supported to do behind these project failures.

<lights touch paper, walks away>

It's an lack of appreciation of jobs and professions such as Civil Engineers and Clerks of Works. Certainly the recent failures in PFI schools in Edinburgh was a lack of oversight off works and poor contractual management.

I'm fairly settled in this opinion as a civil engineer working  in the public sector. Like many of societies current problems, a large part of the solution is a government that mans up to big business and gets tax collection back in order. Thats a route to avoiding public sector cock ups - although of course the public sector is also in knots with inefficiency and procurement nonsense,

If I was boss etc.

Bradford Council failing for the last 30 years to stop Bradford being a shit hole despite it having amazing history, buildings and people

Stockport Council.

Made a big fuss about resurfacing an existing farm track (which was a bit rough but great for the MTB) into a 'cycle friendly lane.  Was as smooth as the M1 until autumn, then turned in to a brown mush about 2" deep.  They then scraped the top off and it was fine.  Since re-surfaced with loose shale.  Taken another 12 months to finish it.  Lets see what autumn brings this year.

I use it regularly on my off road training route (Alan Newton Way).  Fortunately, the council learned from this, and re-surfaced the Middlewood Way in a suitable surface, as that was very boggy last winter.

Local parish council and a new skate board park.

£50k grant, so money not a problem. Started the 8 week project in January 2018. Still not finished. So all the local children, in all that great summer weather could just stand around looking at a building site.

All the fault of the weather(!) and the contractors, apparently.

I think you're bang on there Hannah.

What about a central (or regional) pool of expertise which local council's can submit into? E.g. 'We want a new leisure centre/ school/ town centre, this is the land we have available, this is the money we can afford, what can you give us/ how can we make it work?' Central pool could contain a mixture of employed staff and consultants on a drawn-down as needed basis. Proposals come back, if the local council vote to go ahead, project team is assigned to deliver and cash is ring-fenced. Unrealistic proposals (from council members) get binned before anyone at the council can get too emotionally attached to them. Councils save money by only paying for the expertise when it's needed, instead of having full time employees trying to manage projects.

Hampshire CC for putting up those “looking after your roads” signs then chucking wet tar over the top then and then spraying loose stones randomly then pissing off to let vehicles “embed” the stones in and creating shiny cart tracks ideal for wet slippy surfaces.

Other than that Fareham BC for existing 🤪💩

Woking council has borrowed half a billion or so, with no repayments starting before thirty years, so they can build a massive tower, and turn the town into Croydon. This is on top of the leisure centre that has always lost money, the new school that opened late because it was falling apart, or my favourite, the (now gone) swimming pool on the first floor, that leaked, a lot. Oh, and unsurprisingly, Woking has one of the highest council taxes in the country.

TBH when I read the post it sounded like Woking 😀

The new Hoe Valley School... etc.  (However many billion spent on flood defences that still puts my house in a high risk area for insurance - even though it never flooded BEFORE)

However it's the sum of the micro fails that the title reminded me of.

The completely non joined up roadworks ... new development of all the new "family homes" where they then discovered they needed electricity... and then discovered they needed water  and then discovered they needed sewerage... etc.  so each time they closed the roads (by the fated leisure centre) and dug them up and laid new only to dig them up again a month later ???

We get the V&A

Then they put this up to obscure the view ... ffs

There's a proposed 'retail park' for Peterlee that'll have a big Lidl, a Home Bargains, something else that's generic and a drive through KFC on the site of the (now demolished and relocated to a room in the leisure centre) library and a load of trees were cut down to clear the land. The thought that someone, somewhere thinks this is a Good Idea makes me sad. There's already a Lidl, Home Bargains is on what's left of the main shopping street, there's another generic whatever it is and there's a drive through Mc-****ing-Donalds already. Peterlee doesn't need somewhere else for people to spend their non-existent money. The laughable thing is is that it's not even going to be easy to get to, so the usual boring Sunday retail park offenders won't bother to use it.

The place is a ****ing shithole that needs stuff to do to lift the place up, not places to shop.

birky -  abit like some people complained the V&A was a waste of money so the council decided to hide it.  But then inside there's a viewing platform looking up the river with what should be a stunning view obscured by those concrete planks.

Although not on a huge scale, a junction onto a main road that worked fine so the council changed the roads to introduce some stoppages, slowing traffic, increasing pollution and encouraging drivers to take a short cut that passes a primary school.

I'm not Woking, rather Guildford but close enough to wonder what they are on with the Victoria redevelopment, at a time when town centre retail is dying on its arse. And Guildford's planning its own version with the railway station development.

In recent times we've also had the container village - rumoured to have cost > £1M

Not quite sure what the gripe is with the Hoe Valley School, there is / was a desperate need for more school places so a new school was needed; it might have become a bit of a vanity project thereafter but delays were not just in the funding and build but also in formal approvals at central government (I followed some of this because if it had stayed on track it might well have been the school of choice for my kids). And if it is used in the same way as the Weydon facilities in Farnham it will be a great resource for the local community.

I look at the failures of private enterprise over recent years in so many areas and then look at Local Government and think there's probably less chance of an LA getting things completely wrong than a plc.

Bradford Council failing for the last 30 years to stop Bradford being a shit hole despite it having amazing history, buildings and people

I hear they've filled the hole in with a big shopping centre now 😛

Reading above re: Woking, I'm glad I never went back after leaving for uni. It was a hole in the 90s, and with the few visits I've had to the town centre since my opinion hasn't changed.

For my two-pence, I'll nominate Richmond council for the Twickenham Riverside redevelopment debacle. Oct 2017 (after 3-4 years) - final plans published, cue public uproar. Oct 2018 - planning withdrawn, still no idea on what they are going to do...

Another Woking council classic, the canopy outside the station. They thought it would be nice to have a covered canopy outside the station, until they finished and discovered it was quite dark, so they spent more on lighting, then realised this was bad environmentally, so spent more on solar panels, which blocked out more light, etc.

A few years, and about five million later, it was decided, it attracted "undesirable people" hanging out under it, so more money was spent taking it down.

A small scale Bristol one. Road under a grade 2 listed footbridge needs repair. The bridge is borderline on height for the vehicles that use it. Road repair raises height of road, consequently lorry hits bridge.

A stupid situation that should never have happened, but simple enough to fix right? Nope, it's coming up on 3 years and this bridge is still closed despite the parts for repair having been donated.

http://greenironbridge.com

Our group is a good way to raising the £450k for a pumptrack.

Planning is impossible. There are 27 documents about the process and not one pulls together all the information you need.  So now we've got to wait 6 months, by which time some of the funding will have timed out, to check impact on nesting birds.  It's on established tennis courts sorrounded by football pitches.  Took 8weeks for permission to dig holes to check porosity.

I’m not defending incompetence, and that certainly exists, but I think there’s often a handful of overworked and overwhelmed staff struggling to do their best at something they’re not really equipped or supported to do behind these project failures.

This so much.

No-one goes to work thinking 'today, I am going to stuff it up as best I can'.

That said, I think there is institutionalised attitudes, heavily bureaucratic systems, unionised reactions and processes as well as Joe public getting on your case the moment you don't meet the impossible expectations they have....This leads to a very difficult culture to work within at times.

Only small scale but years back all the local kids campaigned to get a skate park. The local council finally built 2 interconnected bowls.

It rained.
They filled with water.
We then had 2 stagnant ponds for a couple of years until they finally filled them in.

The spanking new Woking Sportsbox looks quite nice - I've watched it being built from the train to work and back.  Nowhere near Woking though.

Be interesting to see how that goes, if the other sports centre's never made any money.  Different focus, I guess.

Anyone know much about that one?

Our group is a good way to raising the £450k for a pumptrack.

Planning is impossible.

check impact on nesting birds

Pretty sure you'll disagree, but this is actually quite heartening to hear, and made me smile. We're in the middle of raising £6m to turn an old outdoor pool into a new outdoor pool. We began in earnest in 2012, we initially applied for planning almost 2 years ago, and we haven't even been in front of the planning committee yet. And in between all that, we've put in thousands upon thousands of voluntary hours, pulled in all kinds of favours, begged, borrowed and whatever else.

We've had wintering birds holding us up. We've had to do exploratory concrete assessments. We've engaged tens and tens of regulatory bodies. The list goes on and on and on.

And seemingly, we have a local authority that, on the face of it, is determined to scupper everything we've done.

So, this isn't going to help you much, but it's nice to know that we're not the only ones facing this stuff!

Good luck with it all! :o)

Only small scale but years back all the local kids campaigned to get a skate park.

See below for even smaller.  I've posted this before, but it pops into my head quite regularly.  Amazing piece of design failure.  At least it's weather proof.  Probably the funnest thing you can do on it is run and slide down it on trainers when it's wet.

[img] [/img]

Just to balance my earlier post, here's a success (well, it seems to have gone down well, and was opened in time for the summer hols):

http://melkshamnews.com/2017/09/27/melkshams-fifth-skate-park-officially-opens/

Didcot Gateway.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-35540249

A vanity project planned for opposite the station, the most important thing being the story hotel that would be an importand feature. Sadly no hotel wanted to be involved. There are a couple of hotels but they are out by the A34 and are convenient for Milton Park and Harwell which are the only things that really draw people to this area.
Ask any councillor why we need this and they say it is vital to DIdcot's growth that they have a hotel.

These are the same people who did the Orchard Centre Stage 2 developement that started by knocking down the public loos next to the bus stop and left Didcot with no toilets for over a year.
Now the hotel project looks doomed the council are saying they could build flats there but they've been told there is no chance of doing that without a major change as there is not enough parking available. The nursery school doesn't know when it will be knocked down but as the council haven't started on the new replacement they are in no panic. The railway Staff Club and the carpet warehouse that are to be demolished to make room for the mini multistorey carpark for the hotel and serviced offices are expanding their business and looking forward to the compensation when the compulsory purchase order comes through. It just goes on and on.

We won't talk about the new road and bridge into the new developement on the old powerstation site, but at least they are planning to have driverless auto pods on the roads shuffling between the rail station and Milton Park. That should be fun.

Swansea Council ripped up the town centre and made it one-way, widening the roads to allow long bendy buses to be used. These buses were on the roads for only a few years, caused three deaths and were pulled from use. The city centre now looks like a building site as all of those roads are being ripped up again. It’s been going on for over a decade and will continue for a couple of years.

(The one-way system meant that for a while I couldn’t work out how to drive around the city, despite having lived here all of my life. It was a nightmare for visitors. )

A few years, and about five million later, it was decided, it attracted “undesirable people” hanging out under it, so more money was spent taking it down.

and the 'undesirable people' went back into the pedestrian tunnel??

This sign (allegedly) cost us £90K

[img] [/img]

Though it did almost seem worth it when somebody made snow cock and balls next to it last winter.

 Our group is a good way to raising the £450k for a pumptrack.

In kirkcudbright we have been waiting for a skatepark/Bmx Park for years, I remember talking about it back before 2000ish but it’s still in the planning stage, we do however have a recent fancy as **** conversion of our town hall into a **** useless £3million (+overspend of £400k) art gallery, yeah....... that’s just what the town needs......dicks.......**** dicks the lot of them

 Our group is a good way to raising the £450k for a pumptrack.

Our council was extremely co-operative and collaborative in the construction of the new velosolutions pump track which opened at the start of this year. It's been universally lauded as a success.

Only problem is that it's at the arse end of the worst, roughest,  council estate in the town and this effectively bars its use to all the  other kids in the town who don't want their bikes nicked or their heads kicked in.

A great idea, well executed with only one tiny flaw.

We have the Wokingham Regeneration Project - currently killing the town's shops, replacing a green space with an Aldi and a Hotel, and putting the council £600M+ in debt.

The spanking new Woking Sportsbox looks quite nice – I’ve watched it being built from the train to work and back.  Nowhere near Woking though.

Be interesting to see how that goes, if the other sports centre’s never made any money.  Different focus, I guess.

Anyone know much about that one?

That is the new Hoe Valley School - runs as a school in the day and then the sports facilities are available for the community to use in the evenings. Works very well with the Weydon in Farnham, loosely similar even with the Surrey Sports park which was / is mainly the University sports complex but dual purposed into a public use as well.

Nowhere near Woking though.

Less than 2 miles from Woking town centre, Goldsworth Park, Westfield, Old Woking..... how close do you want it to be? And if the NIMBIES ever shut up about the green belt* then there will be loads more new houses between Woking and Guildford along the A320 corridor putting the site in the middle of somewhere.

* I don't 'want' to lose the green belt either but we clearly need housing - about 5000 iirc - and it has to go somewhere.

Northamptonshire council spent £53m building a new HQ which they then sold and now lease from the new owner

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-43046692

Down here in the shires our local town council wants to borrow £30m over 40 years to build a new civic complex with theatre on the promise it will bring 3 times more revenue than the current complex - mainly poxy tribute bands and amateur dramatics. Meanwhile core services are being cut.  The problem is it only increases capacity by about 20 seats and it doesn't include the cost of the existing facility which will lie dormant and fall into decay next door - they rejected the proposal to refurbish the existing facility and want to build over the civic car park instead. Basically its a vanity project for the local head gammon and he's now in a froth because he's been holding meetings on the QT were decisions have been taken and he's been rumbled. There's now been a second poll  of those in the parish who will have to pay for it that rejected it 4:1.

<div class="bbp-reply-author">jeff
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We have the Wokingham Regeneration Project – currently killing the town’s shops, replacing a green space with an Aldi and a Hotel, and putting the council £600M+ in debt.

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I had John Redwood knock on my door to ask if we'd vote for whoever was stood behind him for the council and how proud he was that the councils budget balancing still left it as one of the few councils with weekly bin collections.

I was polite-ish, the door didn't actually slam.

Talking about bin collections ... monthly in some areas?  I despair.