[Anonymous]

[TerryMcManus24]

No …Not the new London Estuary Hub UK1…but good old Turkey.

Our sunshine boys scouts in the big House are now looking, so it seems for a “wee green field” somewhere on the road to Reading….eh?

I don’t agree with much of what our Mayor of London comes out with but recon he is spot on with “Eastenders International “

Turkey awards contract for its Third Istanbul Airport $29-bn

Could be some work over there for our unemployed English youngsters.

Turkey has now selected the winning consortium (Cengiz-Kolin-Limak-Mapa-Kalyon) for the new Istanbul airport after it introduced a bid of $29bn for the construction and 25-year operation.

Istanbul’s third airport is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Turkey’s recent history, and under current plans is set to be the LARGEST airport in the world.

The first phase of the project which will cost $10 bn is expected to deliver a passenger handling capacity of 90 Million and will be completed by 2017,while the airport has been designed to handle 150 Million travellers annually upon completion of all its phases.

The project is part of national targets set to be reached by the centennial of the foundation of the republic in 2023, requiring heavy investment in energy, finance and infrastructure.

The country aims to enter the rankings for the top 10 economies of the world by then reaching a GDP level of $2 trillion..

…..and no doubt we will probably still be talking….

[NameRemoved-18/12/14]

Terry

This is very interesting news….you can rely on Turkish to announce a new route almost every other week.

[LuganoPirate]

Shame Cameron does not authorise a few of these multi billion infrastructure projects to get people back in work and the economy moving.

We seem to spend so much on local, national and European government, benefits and so on that nothing’s left for the big projects so badly needed.

[VintageKrug]

+1 LuganoPirate.

[BeckyBoop]

+1 LP

Sadly there is no way the UK could build a new hub airport for “$29-bn” more like £50-bn then the all the extras on top when the project runs late and takes 5 years longer to build. Then when it opens there will be significant infrastructure problems such as baggage system failure etc.

[LuganoPirate]

Just read in Airport World the Chinese are building a new airport (Beijing or Shanghai – cannot remember which) for about £12 bn. Perhaps we should ask the Chinese to build it? I bet they would even fund it! Then we could sell the revenues in an Athens type deal to Goldman Sachs, pay back the Chinese and live happily ever after!

Or am I being a bit cynical here?

Seriously, sadly Becky you’re probably right. I just wonder why we can’t build large infrastructure projects on budget and on schedule? I look at the new Gotthard train line tunnel, the longest in the world, in Switzerland. Planned 20 years ago, nearing completion, on time and under its CHF 12 bn budget! Britain was a world leader in brave and daring large scale infrastructure projects, what on earth went wrong?

[azidane]

Having worked in a few places around the world its pretty evident why other counties can complete mega-projects more timely and cheaply than we can here in the UK.

I have friends who are engineers, electricians, plumbers etc who work/have worked on London Underground, Crossrail, Heathrow T5, The Dome, The Olympics etc and knowing that some of them actually only do 2-3 hours a day actual work on site (one friend at the moment is a Electrician working on LU, he starts at 11pm and is normally back home by 2-3am and gets paid £250 a night) and from what I have heard this is not unusual at all and having refurbed properties myself I know that if I hire Polish/E European builders they generally dont have a tea break every half hour or spend a big part of the morning in the greasy spoon to then knock off for the day at 3.

In other parts of the world they can deliver mega-projects a lot quicker and cheaper as they have access to larger pools of workers who work incredibly hard for cheaper.

[VintageKrug]

To be fair, the working conditions and site safety is a lot better in the UK than in many other places, primarily because of EU law.

We have demonstrated we can deliver new infrastructure:

– a new runway arrived at Manchester with hardly a titter

– T5 had some opening hiccups but has been roundly celebrated as a success within the constraints of the site available (which would not be an issue at a greenfield site)

– The Channel Tunnel is a tremendous accomplishment

– The wind farms out in the Sea are impressive constructs

– The Olympic Park proves we can deliver large projects on time

– CrossRail is demonstrating our ability to deliver supporting infrastructure

So I would counter the usual refrain that the Brits can’t deliver; we can and we have – just look around you!

Who was it who designed and managed the construction of Hong Kong Airport, Beijing Airport…..?

[BeckyBoop]

But what about the cost. Can we build a new airport hub for $28bn like the Turkish?

[craigwatson]

We need to change the way contracts are awarded in this country. In Canada in general the bid goes out to tender, with clauses like penalties for miss deadlines, and bonuses for early targets.

[BigDog.]

Our engineers and architects are and always have been world class which is why we export these talents globally.

What is not world class at delivering infrastructural projects is our political system. Our desire to lead the world by appearing to protect the individual over greater societal constructs (political hierarchies/responsibilities/due process, legislative requirements/processes, judicial oversight, ngos, corporates etc) results in nothing of significance being executed quickly. It is exacerbated further by the lack of political will to underwrite the huge, potentially open ended costs – eg Energy Generation whilst the private sector baulk at the unpredictable risk/reward and mid-project political agenda swings. Swings and Roundabouts.

[VintageKrug]

It would probably cost a tad more than $28bn, BUT I would suggest that the Turkish airport will also cost quite a bit more than its current estimate, such is the nature of major infrastructure.

No one has properly costed the Thames Hub proposals, so it’s hard to say whether we could build it for less than £20bn – personally I think it could if you excluded the road and rail connections needed.

However it’s important to note two things:

1. Infrastructure spend is much more akin to investment, with reductions in unemployment, suppliers increasing turnover, and the longer term benefits and taxes paid by the businesses it supports long into the future. It’s not really a cost but a process with delivers money-generating assets.

2. The funds to deliver such projects are nowadays much more easily available in the form of Sovereign Wealth Funds, UK Pension Funds and public and private subscription than was ever the case in the past – if properly negotiated (and that’s a big if) there’s no reason to suggest it would impact our deficit reduction plans in the medium term.

[LuganoPirate]

And not to forget, the massive wage bill, of which about half glues back into HMRC’s coffers.

It’s also been shown that or every £1 spent, it generates another £3 in the general economy, so in a way at the end the government has most of its money back, a shiny new project which generates more income and profits, and hence more taxes.

[HarryMonk]

Agreed LP, providing the majority of the contracts are awarded to UK companies and the majority of the workers are British.
For large infrastructure projects, the UK should have a set up like the USA where government funded projects must have more than a minimum level (such as 75%) of local content.

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