I usually write here about visits to heritage sites, but my eye was caught by the quoted costs for refurbishing the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament). The buildings are subsiding and apart from that need general refurbishing of the fabric and an updating of the plant and services. The costs were first quoted as being in excess of £1 billion. Now the estimates span from £2 billion to an eye-watering £7 billion – the latter estimate including delays caused by not moving the MPs out, and likely cost inflation.
Being a member of the National Trust and also English heritage I am normally in favour of preserving old buildings, but spending this much on one project seems a restoration too far.
£7 Bn will be telephone numbers to most people so what could you buy for that?
500 big ticket restoration projects like Windsor £28m, Ightham Mote £11m, Catle Drogo £11m, Uppark £18m
Or £18 million for each one of the 380 properties in this blog.
or: Two large aircraft carriers.
or: A quarter of the HS2 project
or: resolve immediate Greek debt crisis
or: pay off NHS trust debts and re-fund
or: cancel most of proposed £12 billion welfare cuts
Mad, isn’t it?
So what’s there that is really worth preserving?
The medieval Westminster Hall is an amazing and ancient structure that should be preserved. And would be a shame to lose the iconic Gothic exterior of the Houses of Pariament. But the rest of it? Do we really want to spend billions preserving the Victorian interiors? I think not. The House of Commons, demolished by German bombing, dates from the 1940s/50s.
One can’t help reflecting that English Heritage was recently given a private charitable status so that maintenance of ancient monuments, formerly the responsibility of the Government via the Ministry of Works and irs successors, is no longer charged to the public purse. Maybe the same rules should apply to the Palace of Westminster?
At the very least, efforts by MPs to stay in place during the refit, thus increasing the duration of the project and greatly increasing costs, should be resisted.