Was Quantum Leap worth the £1m price tag?
Wednesday 7th September 2011, 11:28AM BST.
Is Quantum Leap worth its £1m price tag?
No, says Toby Neal
The Quantum Leap sculpture in Shrewsbury has turned into a financial fiasco and an object lesson in the perils of financing public artwork with taxpayers’ money.
Salopians have been sold a pup. When approval was first given for the riverside sculpture to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of that most famous son of Shrewsbury, Charles Darwin, the cost to local taxpayers was put at £210,000.
That figure soon leapt alarmingly to just under £500,000 when it was found that it was slightly out of alignment. And now, amid months of wrangling over who is to blame and who should pay, the total costs have soared to over £1 million.
That is a hefty blow at a time when councils are trying to save every last penny of unnecessary spending.
This whole mess, which began in the days of the defunct Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Council, now lies at the door of Shropshire Council.
It is not as if concerns were not raised in the early days. But it is easy to be enthusiastic and visionary when you are spending other people’s money.
It is symptomatic of the carelessness and lack of control which sees public money disappearing down the drain in public projects ranging from NHS computer systems to Nimrod aircraft which never leave the ground.
In the private sector, such profligacy would not be accepted and heads would roll. Those who have led Shrewsbury into this financial disaster will be able to shrug and walk away.
In a poll we did two years ago, 53 per cent of Shrewsbury people thought the sculpture was a waste of taxpayers’ money.
The way things have evolved, it will be hard to find anybody in the town today who thinks the £1 million-plus cost is justified.
***
Yes, says Andrew Owen
It’s not exactly a popular point of view — a bit like defending a notorious criminal — but I think it’s possible to speak in defence of Quantum Leap.
Yes, it’s cost a lot of money.
Things went wrong. You cannot plan for everything. I’m sure if those behind Quantum Leap had known what was going to happen, they wouldn’t have bothered coming up with the idea in the first place.
But they did. And the money has been spent. And the result is, in my opinion, really rather spectacular.
Yes, it’s more than unfortunate that all this expense has happened at a time of local and national cost-cutting. Yes, that money could have been spent on health or local services, but it wasn’t. You cannot change that, I’m afraid, much as you might like to.
Everything costs, it’s just a question of what value you get in return
And don’t run off with the idea that it was caused by a bunch of out-of-touch councillors eating caviar and drinking champagne while throwing your money away. They acted with good intentions, for the good of Shrewsbury, and couldn’t have known how it was going to turn out in the end.
It’s highly doubtful that the council will ever attempt such a project again, and that’s a pity.
But hopefully it won’t have to spend any more on Quantum Leap.
And Quantum Leap will be there for years to come. Eventually, it’ll have paid for itself.
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Spectacular ??? really ? easily pleased, shame it took a million to do it.
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Hmmmmm got £1million for a lump of cement that does NOTHING.
But not to keep one of towns best known schools open?
GREAT
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It looks like all the other stone and concrete rubbish around the town, something else to bump into.
Well it’s only money at the end of the day! If they haden’t wasted it on this they would have wasted it on some other brainless scheme.
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It looks better than the building on the opposite bank.
It can be enjoyed by all and not just the middle and upper classes.
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Quite true – I had to sit by some awful common people at last year’s Pantomime.
Come on – forget the chip on your shoulder – there is entertainment for every walk of life at the Theatre
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And how do you propose it will have paid for itself? I personally don’t see anything at all ‘spectacular’ about it – other than the cost.
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I quite like the concept of it.
It could have been made more attractive by using different materials to build it. It also could have been placed more appropriately, in the quarry for instance where people/tourists actually visit.
Far too much to pay for it though.
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Sorry me again:-
RE: “Eventually, it’ll have paid for itself.”
How does this occur? They think people will travel far and wide to see a stone look-a-like of a cows spine?!?!?
Deluded people in high places
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why not pay it off over the next 200 years? if it is worth having as a tourist attraction or just as a monument to Charles Darwin, then it will be worth just as much to whoever lves here in 2200
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We need to make coucillors more accountable for OUR MONEY they keep wasting.This will not affect the council they will just put up your taxes to cover THEIR MISTAKE.At a time when councils are crying poverty to waste 1million pounds is criminal.Thank goodness I emigrated to Canada from Shropshire 6 years ago, so it’s not my money being squandered.ha ha
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Who sanctioned this project,it just beggars belief talk about flushing money down the toilet,while meanwhile council staff have had to take a pay cut and we cannot save one of our most historic schools,hang your head in shame dreamer and wake up in the real world.
disgusted,malcolm roberts
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How can something so relatively small cost £1,000,000 and also have “problems”. It could have been constructed with chicken wire and fibre glass for a fraction of that cost and looked exactly the same.
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crikey you dont get much concrete and steel for a million pounds nowadays.my prefab concrete social housing house must be worth at least 5 million.they will putting up the rent.it will probably last longer as well built in the 30s i think and still they havnt had to modernise it.
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I do like it but …at £210k at £500k I like it a lot less …and at £1M I’m afraid to say every time I now look at it, it is with disdain, to think how many jobs would it have secured and services maintained.
My BIG complaint is why are the Council paying this inflated price? Surely you would not commission the sculpture on an estimate, the cost should have been fixed if it wasn’t installed correctly then the builders should have fixed it at their cost and what possible additional work would demand nearly a 5 times increase in the cost?
It bothers me as an employee and as a Council Tax payer that all the contracts that the Authority enter in to are done so with the same lack of responsibility and care, after all it’s not Keith Barrows money he’s giving away!
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it was worth doing something and i support the idea, the principle, the concept and i really like the finished peice, its really really nice, BUT!
BIG BUT!!!!!
£1,000,000!!!!!!!
sorry but that is at least ten times too much if not 100 times too much!!!
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i must say i like it but its just not worth £1mill, i like the statue of darwin by the library too actually and i think that only cost £15k in todays money
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answer = NO
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Who designed it PABLO PICASSO ?
£1m on art is just silly
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in answer to your query, i would say No
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So a build project starts at £210,000 and ends at £1,000,000. I smell a rat or several.
When the original plans were drawn what form of tendering process was agreed to select a contractor? Were there several close to £210,000 or did one stand out as being so much cheaper than all the rest? Whatever happened, did the councils own Surveyors not run an eye over the costs put forward by the contractor?
It seems to me that too many people were responsible and that is why nosingle person is being made responsible!
The original decision to go with the £210,000 was agreed by whom and what form of review to check the accuracy of the tender. Then when it increased to £500,000 – again who was involved – I will guess no single person – were the contractors made to justify the extra spend. Surely at this point, some form of cap could have been put on the spend for the contract to protect us ordinary working people from having to dip into our pockets too much. Then when we get the final costs – how does it double again?
The price of concrete has not risen 4 fold! I am guessing the people constructing have not seen a 4 fold increase in their pay! So just where has the money gone? Surely there must be records showing how the increase has been justified and who agreed the various stages of sign off?
If this is an example of how build costs are allowed to escalate 4 fold with seemingly little if any challenge, then are we right to be worried that all jobs the council puts out to tender are costing more than the original tender.
Here is a question – if the take the largest 20 tenders given out in the last 3 years, what was the original tender costs in total and what was the final cost of all 20.
If the Quantum Leap is a typical example, then it appears we may be looking at alot of money has been given away with little thought of the consequence to us the tax payers.
Schools could have stayed open, day centres could stay open, the Reference Library would remain in tact, so many services would have been in a better position!
As I end, I am reminded that the refurb of the Chief Execs office also ran out of control – do we see a pattern forming? If we want it we will have it – no matter what the cost?
We appear to be paying alot of people alot of money to make poor decisions, so are they the right people for the jobs?
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I have actually seen a more completely pointless, inexplicable and off-centre memorial than this, but it wasn’t easy. It was the dreadful modern stainless steel ‘thing’ at Omaha Beach.
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I know it’s ended up costing far too much, but I really like it. We walked through the gardens past it recently and loads of people were in there sitting eating lunch or reading on the grass in its shadow. When it comes to local councils, you don’t know when you’re well off! The town I come from in Scotland lost its ice rink, two theatres, sports tournaments, loads of shops (due to extortionate rates), a municipal gold course, etc, etc, thanks to the rubbish council. That town is is now a disgrace I wouldn’t want to live in again. Shrewsbury is a great place to live with so much going for it. I don’t understand all the complaining and negativity. It’s done now, learn from it (let’s hope the council have) and move on.
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Guys,
You’ve got to remember that all a councillor wants is for his name to be immortalised forever, and what better way to do it than some sort of concrete structure, which would be his contribution to society, and hang the cost!
I long ago formed the opinion that if someone wants to be a councillor, that very craving should debar them from office.
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no it wasnt
it wasnt even worth the original 350k and everyone said so at the time but shropshire councillors forced it on people
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#13Bob lee
[I do like it but …at £210k at £500k I like it a lot less …and at £1M I’m afraid to say every time I now look at it, it is with disdain, to think how many jobs would it have secured and services maintained.]
Well, bear in mind Bob that the whole judicial review and fight not to go unitary 3 yrs ago cost a similar figure in the end and we did’t even get a lump of concrete that we quite like for that!
I hope this is posted as when the subject of the whole debacle of the opposition to the unitary authority costs (which were paid for by Shropshire taxpayers) is mentioned, it never seems to be posted. :(
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Isn’t there legislation (used against Derek Hatton and Militant Tendency in Liverpool in the ’80s/90′s I seem to recall) which could see that the idiot councillors who passed the motion to waste our money are a) made to pay personally for their idiocy and b) prevented from standing for any position on a council for a period of a number of years? Even £200k in any financial climate for this is an unjustifiable waste of our money and I suspect anyone in their right minds could have foreseen how this was going to end.
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Was it worth it? NO!
I don’t see how anyone can possibly argue that it was!
In the time I’ve been in Shrewsbury I’ve never spent anytime looking at this, I’ve never noticed people around it and I can’t imagine why anyone living out of Shrewsbury would possibly think ‘I need to go and see that new statue’. It is not something that will attract tourists, so I fail to see how it’s going to pay for itself? And that’s just assuming that it was at the original cost, let alone three times more!
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