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

Would the sensible thing to do be relocate permanantly? Sell the property for enough cash to build the new place in say Nottingham*?

*Thinking somewhere more central in the UK and cheaper to build.

bbc article

Would the sensible thing to do be relocate permanantly? Sell the property for enough cash to build the new place in say Nottinghaman 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 sea 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 4 billion 12 Billion, I’m pretty sure we could build a moonbase and relocate the **** off world.

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

Given that the cost will 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 Billion to overhaul The Palace of Westminster.
£12 Million 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:

What do they actually need to repair in the Houses of Parliament?

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.