A Place to Stand

The 28-mile road - previously predicted to cost £347m - was given the green light by Scottish ministers in 2009, but was delayed by legal action...

It is anticipated that construction will get under way in 2014, with completion by spring 2018.

In answer to a parliamentary question lodged by Aberdeen Central SNP MSP Kevin Stewart, Mr Brown said the scheme had been costed at £347m in 2008 - an estimate based on 2003 prices.

He said that the figure had now risen to £653m as a result of "scope changes, the inclusion of standard risk costs and rebasing to 2012 prices".

    £653m from £347m over 9 years is an inflation rate of  7% which fits very closely with the real inflation rate plus the 4% a year that, according to my FoI has been going on for over 50 years and caused our public prohects to normally cost 8 times what they do in the rest of the world. The only reason the bureaucracy could suggest for this gouging was that "significantly higher oil prices" in the early 2000s. Other possibilities would be government parasitism and open corruption, in whatever ratio.

   By coincidence open government parasitism and corruption is part of what the Telegraph implies is the reason roadbuilding prices are much higher in Russia.


    given in costs per mile

 £653m over 28 miles is £23.3m per mile or $36.1m per mile , 3 1/2 times more than in Russia as a whole, 20% more even than in Moscow with its astronomical land prices. Admittedly this was 2 years ago and inflation has been all of about 6% since then.

An imposing post-Soviet bureaucracy and chaotic infrastructure planning 
 has led to astronomical 
road-building costs in Russia
How much does it cost to build a road in Russia? Six times as much as it does in the United States, according to a recent study by Russian news agency Ria Novosti on comparitive rates in Moscow, the EU, the US and China.

The report noted that China has the cheapest cost, at about $1.3m per mile, with the US and the EU coming in at between $3.6m and $4.2m. In Russia it costs around $10.5m a mile. And in Moscow it can cost a massive $31m, according to an official at the Russian Transport Ministry....
“The contract value includes costs of land, buildings, courts, utilities, infrastructure,” Bakshinsky noted. “All this involves huge costs, especially in the centre of Moscow where the land value is so high".....

The contractor’s job is to wade through this morass; the faster gets the work done the more the company earns. Road building costs are not that high, added Bakshinsky, but the process of preparing the place for the road to be built is “worthy of Kafka”.

   Sound like a description of Scotland, apart from the high land prices?

   This reminds me of an old cold war joke.

    American & Russian talking "In my country we are free to criticise our government"
    "Is same in Russia - we are free to criticise your government"

     Don't expect our media to voice any criticism of this, in any way comparable to the Telegraph's,  probably justified, criticism of Russia.