nimbys. Everyone wants the benefits of the new infrastructure but just not where they are or in there sight line
It doesnt. Its just an hypercapitalist cleptocracy. Infrastructure’s value around the world tends to be a high multiple of its cost. Here the value and cost are just a lot closer cause we let the local cleptocrats name a price.
Lack of competition in the market. There are only 2 or 3 contractors big enough to take this stuff on. None of them are great, but they don’t need to be!
NIMBYism and planning regulations. It would be very difficult to remove planning regulations without removing some environmental considerations which usually lead to them being in place, so you basically have a choice between a UK system in which nothing gets done for years, or a Chinese system in which a whole new city can be built in short order, but it’s utterly shite, and the surrounding river systems get borked for all eternity.
Also – it’s like buying a house in England. The processes in the UK ensure that those industry get paid maximum amounts for doing minimal work, and this goes on for several years because it suits the planners and consultants.
Better question is to ask what Britain doesn’t suck at.
Because the work is contracted out by people who don’t understand what they’re asking for to private firms who are incentivised to take the piss and run over budget or bodge the job so they can return for repairs several more times?
We need a government-run service like Network Rail for road & utility repairs, it’s ridiculous that the quality of the road, signage or vegetation surrounding can change immediately on crossing an arbitrary line – you’d expect it from developing countries, not a neighbouring county.
Because government works on 5 year cycles, making it impossible for 20 year infrastructure project to progress without some element of fiddling by the incumbent
People will attack the planners because the RTPI never defends them but I would lay the blame at politicians catering to NIMBYs and corruption increasing costs.
Honestly? Political interference. The engineering isn’t the issue, it’s that when confronted with the cost of something it’s usually instructed that it needs to be halved, then halved again.
And we end up where we are.
We don’t. If you look at the Elizabeth Line we’re actually very good at it – threading a whacking great tunnel through ground that had been built on for centuries and riddled with deep basements, foundations and other train tunnels.
The problem is that the UK is heavily built already, and everything we do has to piss off a vast number of people who will either lose their homes of have their lives blighted by 10 years of development. Of course they’re going to cause trouble. Everyone complains about NIMBYS, but everyone on here would do exactly the same if HS2 decided to stick a rock crusher behind their house for 10 years.
Doing stuff like this in Dubai is really easy – no one lives on the. 20 acres of desert you’re going to build on and no one cares about it.
All democratic countries suffer from issues with building infrastructure quickly. For example, the Indian bullet train has been delayed to 2026. By then, China would have demolished a bunch of houses and built 10 bullet trains without caring.
Because the government are scared of spending money and because NIMBYs have far too much power.
Masses of incompetent civil servants who’s only purpose in life is to slow everything down with red tape ultimately costing everyone 3x as much as it was going to then assigning contracts to company’s who’s only goal is to take 80% of the money as profit before periodically coming back and asking for more money and that are usually Tory donors.
I’ve said before but it blows my mind we even have a road system at times, it feels like if it was the current day UK back then it wouldn’t exist. Or if it did, it would cover about a 1/3 of the country favoured toward the south east.
Corruption to a level that would make Sicily blush
15 years of disinvestment and “austerity” under the tories.
Nimbys and a bunch of corrupt crooks running the show?
Yes Minister explained this problem in episode The Bed of Nails aired in 9 December 1982 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDsSMi4zclo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDsSMi4zclo) nothing has changed.
Suck?
Who in heaven’s opposite world allowed that word (italics) leading such a well-thought out article based around research (more italics) by 24 year old researchers (I can’t be bothered) from an American consulting firm, BCG, that other well-known nursery for Tory thinkplaces and whatnot, including members of the esteemed mother of Parliaments! One must huff about a bit. I imagine the editors of CityAM must feel somewhat passed by.
Cause we don’t build enough and spend no money on public infrastructure, simple. Not the planning system, not NIMBYs, these are the easy excuses for the fact that this country is decades behind in terms of infrastructure for every aspect of public life
There’s a real problem in the UK with not just nimbyism but also nostalgia shit. The amount of British people who are terrified of anything modern is crazy.
You go onto any comment section about e sports, tech news, modern music and so on. It’s just 50+ year old brits having a cry. Even if its American news, its always brits moaning assuming it’ll impact them.
5g, super fast, fire TV, news online, e sports, literally anything modern, you’ll find a significant portion of brits blocking it. Not cus nimbys but also cus fear and ignorance.
When the contractors and people in Govt use them as gravy trains, it’s no surprise they cost vastly more than planned and are continually delayed.
We aren’t bad at infrastructure if it’s within the M25. The rest of the country can fuck off though.
We pay by the hour. it’s a huge mistake.
NASA contracted Boeing by the hour to build Starliner. 10years late and 25billion over cost and it STILL hasn’t had a full successful flight, but Boeing wants another 20Billion to finish the job!
High population density, masses of regulations, dozens of laws empowering NIMBY’s, and a disjointed local-national government system.
Britain sucks at most things now. Massive decline since the war. People treat badly, pay poor, apprentices basically stopped in the 70’s causing a huge skills shortage now and what we sew we reap. The list is endless and sucessive parties Tory AND Labour just havent got any ideas.
Britain hasn’t sewn much for years… we are getting our just deserts. Sad thing is we still think we are great.
Everything is too centralised. Too much top down control from treasury and the like.
We need to reform planning laws, devolve power on taxation and spending to regional authorities and engage in political reform that favours long term thinking
Three things:
– The 5 year election cycle discourages long term spending by our politicians who are more concerned with flashy popularity subjects
– Lack of education in government, politics and critical thinking for the general populace – leading the MM to have a disproportionate influence on people’s political affiliations.
– Politics becoming dominated by those with rich, privileged backgrounds. They have no regard for the reality of day to day life. Also widespread corruption.
Another thing to consider is that this is a chronic state of affairs. We’re only waking up to it now because the extent of the decay is becoming obvious.
Shitty, shitty kpis on delivery contracts.
KPIs are based on stupid shit like project steps not overunning, rather than effecient or effective planning.
How do you ensure that?
Simple, add 5 weeks after every step to ensure there are no overuns.
Oh you’re leasing equipment for this? Perfect, just have it turn up at the start of its predesigned slot for the project.
Ah, but this means now you have five week chunks of dead time after a 1 week job you can’t move forward.
Multiply this out by 20 project steps and you end up with shit like a motorway taking 3 years to resurface.
29 comments
nimbys. Everyone wants the benefits of the new infrastructure but just not where they are or in there sight line
It doesnt. Its just an hypercapitalist cleptocracy. Infrastructure’s value around the world tends to be a high multiple of its cost. Here the value and cost are just a lot closer cause we let the local cleptocrats name a price.
Lack of competition in the market. There are only 2 or 3 contractors big enough to take this stuff on. None of them are great, but they don’t need to be!
NIMBYism and planning regulations. It would be very difficult to remove planning regulations without removing some environmental considerations which usually lead to them being in place, so you basically have a choice between a UK system in which nothing gets done for years, or a Chinese system in which a whole new city can be built in short order, but it’s utterly shite, and the surrounding river systems get borked for all eternity.
Also – it’s like buying a house in England. The processes in the UK ensure that those industry get paid maximum amounts for doing minimal work, and this goes on for several years because it suits the planners and consultants.
Better question is to ask what Britain doesn’t suck at.
Because the work is contracted out by people who don’t understand what they’re asking for to private firms who are incentivised to take the piss and run over budget or bodge the job so they can return for repairs several more times?
We need a government-run service like Network Rail for road & utility repairs, it’s ridiculous that the quality of the road, signage or vegetation surrounding can change immediately on crossing an arbitrary line – you’d expect it from developing countries, not a neighbouring county.
Because government works on 5 year cycles, making it impossible for 20 year infrastructure project to progress without some element of fiddling by the incumbent
People will attack the planners because the RTPI never defends them but I would lay the blame at politicians catering to NIMBYs and corruption increasing costs.
Honestly? Political interference. The engineering isn’t the issue, it’s that when confronted with the cost of something it’s usually instructed that it needs to be halved, then halved again.
And we end up where we are.
We don’t. If you look at the Elizabeth Line we’re actually very good at it – threading a whacking great tunnel through ground that had been built on for centuries and riddled with deep basements, foundations and other train tunnels.
The problem is that the UK is heavily built already, and everything we do has to piss off a vast number of people who will either lose their homes of have their lives blighted by 10 years of development. Of course they’re going to cause trouble. Everyone complains about NIMBYS, but everyone on here would do exactly the same if HS2 decided to stick a rock crusher behind their house for 10 years.
Doing stuff like this in Dubai is really easy – no one lives on the. 20 acres of desert you’re going to build on and no one cares about it.
All democratic countries suffer from issues with building infrastructure quickly. For example, the Indian bullet train has been delayed to 2026. By then, China would have demolished a bunch of houses and built 10 bullet trains without caring.
Because the government are scared of spending money and because NIMBYs have far too much power.
Masses of incompetent civil servants who’s only purpose in life is to slow everything down with red tape ultimately costing everyone 3x as much as it was going to then assigning contracts to company’s who’s only goal is to take 80% of the money as profit before periodically coming back and asking for more money and that are usually Tory donors.
I’ve said before but it blows my mind we even have a road system at times, it feels like if it was the current day UK back then it wouldn’t exist. Or if it did, it would cover about a 1/3 of the country favoured toward the south east.
Corruption to a level that would make Sicily blush
15 years of disinvestment and “austerity” under the tories.
Nimbys and a bunch of corrupt crooks running the show?
Yes Minister explained this problem in episode The Bed of Nails aired in 9 December 1982 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDsSMi4zclo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDsSMi4zclo) nothing has changed.
Suck?
Who in heaven’s opposite world allowed that word (italics) leading such a well-thought out article based around research (more italics) by 24 year old researchers (I can’t be bothered) from an American consulting firm, BCG, that other well-known nursery for Tory thinkplaces and whatnot, including members of the esteemed mother of Parliaments! One must huff about a bit. I imagine the editors of CityAM must feel somewhat passed by.
Cause we don’t build enough and spend no money on public infrastructure, simple. Not the planning system, not NIMBYs, these are the easy excuses for the fact that this country is decades behind in terms of infrastructure for every aspect of public life
There’s a real problem in the UK with not just nimbyism but also nostalgia shit. The amount of British people who are terrified of anything modern is crazy.
You go onto any comment section about e sports, tech news, modern music and so on. It’s just 50+ year old brits having a cry. Even if its American news, its always brits moaning assuming it’ll impact them.
5g, super fast, fire TV, news online, e sports, literally anything modern, you’ll find a significant portion of brits blocking it. Not cus nimbys but also cus fear and ignorance.
When the contractors and people in Govt use them as gravy trains, it’s no surprise they cost vastly more than planned and are continually delayed.
We aren’t bad at infrastructure if it’s within the M25. The rest of the country can fuck off though.
We pay by the hour. it’s a huge mistake.
NASA contracted Boeing by the hour to build Starliner. 10years late and 25billion over cost and it STILL hasn’t had a full successful flight, but Boeing wants another 20Billion to finish the job!
High population density, masses of regulations, dozens of laws empowering NIMBY’s, and a disjointed local-national government system.
Britain sucks at most things now. Massive decline since the war. People treat badly, pay poor, apprentices basically stopped in the 70’s causing a huge skills shortage now and what we sew we reap. The list is endless and sucessive parties Tory AND Labour just havent got any ideas.
Britain hasn’t sewn much for years… we are getting our just deserts. Sad thing is we still think we are great.
Everything is too centralised. Too much top down control from treasury and the like.
We need to reform planning laws, devolve power on taxation and spending to regional authorities and engage in political reform that favours long term thinking
Three things:
– The 5 year election cycle discourages long term spending by our politicians who are more concerned with flashy popularity subjects
– Lack of education in government, politics and critical thinking for the general populace – leading the MM to have a disproportionate influence on people’s political affiliations.
– Politics becoming dominated by those with rich, privileged backgrounds. They have no regard for the reality of day to day life. Also widespread corruption.
Another thing to consider is that this is a chronic state of affairs. We’re only waking up to it now because the extent of the decay is becoming obvious.
Shitty, shitty kpis on delivery contracts.
KPIs are based on stupid shit like project steps not overunning, rather than effecient or effective planning.
How do you ensure that?
Simple, add 5 weeks after every step to ensure there are no overuns.
Oh you’re leasing equipment for this? Perfect, just have it turn up at the start of its predesigned slot for the project.
Ah, but this means now you have five week chunks of dead time after a 1 week job you can’t move forward.
Multiply this out by 20 project steps and you end up with shit like a motorway taking 3 years to resurface.