Teen beauty spot drinkers are ramblers, not rebels
- Dave Burrows
Protesters demand £1m Quantum Leap inquiry
Saturday 24th September 2011, 11:29AM BST.
Quantum Leap in Shrewsbury
Protesters have launched a petition calling for an inquiry after the final cost of Shrewsbury’s controversial Quantum Leap sculpture – dubbed the Slinky – topped £1 million.
Hundreds were expected to demonstrate at the site in Mardol Quay today after the final bill for the project rocketed when an independent adjudicator ruled that Shropshire Council would be liable for the extra costs incurred by the project being delayed.
Campaigners are now seeking an investigation into whether the project offers value for money.
Councillor Jon Tandy, who has helped to arrange the protest, said: “We will be passing around a petition asking for the District Auditor to see if it was value for money.”
He said he wanted to see some responsibility taken for the decisions that had led to the sculpture costing more than £1 million.
“Somebody somewhere needs to take the accountability of saying ‘Where was the needs analysis? Where was the public saying they wanted this piece of art and where was the consultation?’,” he said.
“This is £1 million of taxpayers money.”
The Quantum Leap project was originally started by Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council before responsibility was passed on to Shropshire Council when the former authority was dissolved in 2009.
During the summer of that year problems were discovered which had to be corrected and led to a delay in the project, which was completed in March 2010.
Following a ruling by an independent adjudicator earlier this month that the fault lay with an ‘inadequate design specification’, SABC was deemed liable for the delay, with Shropshire Council left to pick up a tab that included a £410,000 payment to Alun Griffiths Contractors and legal costs of £115,000. The sculpture had been due to cost £483,000.
Meanwhile, Councillor Tandy also today raised concerns that the council has now employed Alun Griffiths Contractors again to carry out an eight-week project on Smithfield Road.
But Councillor Simon Jones, Shropshire Council cabinet member for transport, said: “We have a range of projects taking place across the county and these are subject to our robust procurement rules which Alun Griffiths are able to tender for.”
By Chris Burn
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Value for money ?, more like a waste of resources. The Council Tax must be too high if they can afford to squander all that money on an embarrassment like that.
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I thought it was a fish bone. Thrown out from the council pole tax offices the other side of the river.
But then it can’t be they only eat caviar ! while people are living in fuel poverty
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just remember when the local council elections come round and these people are begging for your vote.
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The spot looked infinitely better when ‘Gethin’s Garage’ occupied the site.
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Please sign my petition;
We, the undersigned, demand an inquiry into the final cost of this inquiry.
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so how much would an enquiry cost?
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“Councillor Jon Tandy, who has helped to arrange the protest, said: “We will be passing around a petition asking for the District Auditor to see if it was value for money.”
Don’t bother Jon. You don’t have to ask the DA, I know the answer to that one, in fact we all do. It’s NO!
Demolish it, slab the area, put a park bench there or something we can get value from & forget what’s gone before.
However those responsible should be made to demolish it in their own time with nothing more than toffee hammers & they go without pay until the task is complete. That’ll teach them. Further, we’d be able to watch & cheer them on. Now that would draw the crowds!
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WOULD THE PROTESTERS HAVE BEEN DEMONSTRATING IF
A LABOUR CONTROLLED COUNCIL HAD BEEN WASTING THE
TAX-PAYERS MONEY AS ONLY LABOUR COUNCILS HAVE A
LONG HISTORY OF DOING?
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YES.
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If our councillors are organising it, another million quid probably!
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could it be moved to an old peoples home where it would have a use as a radiator to keep our elderly warm
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I just cannot believe this?
Procurement for ANY item should be at a FIXED price. IF the supplier then messes up – then thats down to the supplier !!! END OF!!!!
So .. how IS IT that this job wasnt put out to tender on this basis?????
This smacks to me of GROSS mismanagment – and it is NO EXCUSE to say that it was all SABC’s problem!! – Surely Control for all of this project would have simply continued on to the new authority – why would that change anything – all of the original specifications, design, and purchasing contracts etc would still exist and be the same?
In ALL my 40 odd years in engineering, tendering for contracts with large corporate organisations – the end price was FIXED
That is to say – we priced the job to a tender specification – and the price quoted was the price paid of completion.
If we messed up – we paid – NOT the customer !!!! (UNLESS … it could be shown that the customer had incorrectly specified the project in the first place !!!! –
SO .. WHO PRODUCED THE DESIGN ?PURCHASING SPECIFICATIPON FOR THIS PROCECT ????
Perhaps we havent “evolved” as good as we think??
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The fact that Jon Tandy doesn’t like a modern contemporay sculpture speaks volumes.
I didn’t like the same amount of money being spent by SABC who were trying to stop the unitary council going ahead.
Mind you,some people did very nicely out of that but it was not us taxpayers, we got absolutely nothing from the whole shenanigans.
The 100% increase in allowances for county councillors was a rather fortunate consequence of the change for some, wasn’t it Jon?
Why don’t you go back to playing on your new toys and leave those of us who like the sculpture to feel that we at least have got some reward for our local taxes.
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the enquiry should identify and name and shame the responsible persons, officers, councillors etc who approved the design spec, its no good saying it was done by committee, someone somewhere senior must have signed something so they should be sacked
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Not a lot can be done about the cost now. However the general public should be made aware of all individuals who had a part in it from councilors to contractors and a full investigation in to all the costs involved.
It should be then left down to the voter, to decide if any councilor should shoulder blame, and demand that contractors who are found to blame are not used for further projects.
If anything this has shown ” Anything at any cost to promote shrewsbury through its link to Darwin ”
The mentality of the select few has cost the tax payers thousands and given plenty of bad publicity for the town of Shrewsbury.
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I think the Council should appoint a project manager with commercial and construction experience to oversee all major capital projects and keep a reign on things
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Allan, that’s “real world” planning and thinking….this is the council we are talking about. You know, those clever public servants who think they are better than the private sector and know more and are entitled to earn so much more than the rest of us….come on, get real!!
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you must be on pretty rubbish pay if you are paid less than council workers – you earn less than a bin man? you must have like zero qualifications then right?
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Ruth, you seem to be the one with limited intelligence, I’m afraid!
Firstly where did I mention that I earned less than council workers?
Secondly, anyone with any intelligence knows that binmen are now the employees of a private company, Veloia…try and keep up dear!
So what might your qualifications be, Ruth?
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HA HA roadrunner must earn a PITTANCE poor lad should have studied harder at school
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LOL
Roadrunner should have tried harder in his O levels
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Actually the joke’s on you two. I have run my own business for nearly thirty years and I am quite happy with my income and holidays thank you.
However running my own business, it makes me laugh at the attempts of public servants to try and run anything…they are so inept that if they started their owwn businesses they would soon go broke, especially if they ended up paying £1M for a pile of junk….how many homes could have been built for that amount?…..two words sum up the attempts of councils to run anything to a budget….sadly lacking!
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Ha, more blinkered anti public sector rhetoric from the roadrunner.
You seem only able to pick up on the negatives which I suppose shouldn’t be too surprising given that the media usually only seeks to report on these. Your misguided perception of public sector employees is that we in some way think we’re superior. Are you serious? Do you read some of the rubbish, the lies and the general hysteria posted about public sector employees in these forums, much of it by yourself?
Think about those much over used three words which always appear: “the real world” – you’ve used it again above. I beg to differ -but I’m afraid it’s the private sector which seems to think it is over and above everything public sector.
I’ve worked in both and currently still work across both sectors. If you really think that mismanagement and poor work ethic is limited to the private sector you are very sadly deluded. You see, unlike you and your type, I prefer to comment based on my actual experience, not what I choose to believe.
There was story recently on these pages about assaults in our local hospitals. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most of the staff there public servants? I wonder if you passed judgement on that news item. Probably not as there was a rare story portraying those public servants as the victim.
How you remain in business must be pretty remarkable when your beliefs are apparently stuck in the past.
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Like yourself, Mark, I too have worked for councils, private companies, large and small and now myself. I was working for councils as far back as 1972 so probably have more experience with them and working in the real world than you.
Fair enough, Mark, we have “mistakes” from private sector companies but the cost for such “mistakes” comes from their own coffers not everyones council tax.
People expect more from people in the public sector when they are spending OUR money. We seem to have very few people in the public sector capable of managing OUR money or completing jobs comepetently, this is what upsets people.
Private sector workers don’t go about whinging about their “poor conditions” like public sector workers always seem to, either.
Perhaps if public sector workers worked more efficiently they would get more sympathy.
Perhaps you could give examples of major public sector projects that have been completed succesfully and to budget because I’m struggling to think of one.
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I like the slinky and it is here to stay no matter how much it cost! Go and protest about something that you can actually change.
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Sack the board
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So will Cllr Tandy tell us how his fellow Labour councillors voted regarding the decision to build the slinky in the first place?
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I’m still waiting for a reply to my simple question
How is it that this project (along with ALL other projects) was NOT put out to tender at a FIXED price??
Please please can we have simple answer to this PLEASE councillors?
Or …. let me put it another way,
Lets say ….HOW many councillers would employ a builder to build a private house for them – WITHOUT agreeing a FIXED price first???? (And having a proper design specifcation in place first??)
NOT ONE I’ll wager!!!
So WHY NOT for this than ??
Imagine instructing a builder without agreeing a price??
imagine:
thinking your house was going to cost say 450K .. and then turns out to be £1,000,000 !!
!!!
I THINK NOT !!!
So HOW can that happen here!!!
It doesnt matter whether it was a monument to Darwin, or replacing worn out roads, sewers etc – the principle of FIXED price has to be the same !!!
An answer PLEASE from Shrewsbury council!!
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Public enquiry, contracts, tenders, “Who approved this?”, “We want answers!!!”, “Colin from Bayston Hill thinks it is a outrage.” Yawn.
LONG LIVE QUANTUM LEAP.
J’ADORE QUANTUM LEAP.
VIVA QUANTUM LEAP.
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askeric dot com
You cannot compare a complicated one off project such as this with a generally well tried and tested scenario of building a house. Unless, of course, you are building a very different sort of one off house and you only have to watch Grand designs to see how often they go over budget.
Thank goodness for brave and innovativeness because we would have a pretty boring world without it.
This sculpture was pushing boundaries with an interesting building material that requires massive skill to get right.
Darwin pushed boundaries too, though he had to leave Shrewsbury to do it and his work continues to be challenged and criticized to this day.
I beleive that the site of the Quantum Leap was not properly considered and it was the unstable ground that created problems with such a precise design and extraordinarily heavy material.
Does that answer your question? Simples realy if you just think a bit harder about things.
I would question the poor advice given to the council that resulted in them incurring a further cost of over £120,000 in legal fees, fruitlessly fighting the builders.
If Jon Tandy doesn’t like it then he can put his generous allowances to good use forcing an enquiry or go around with a tin can asking for donations.
Just leave our taxes alone they are truly wasted on items we never get to see most of the time.
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Hi Eva
Im sorry,
I cant agree with you.
This project is in my opinion harldy innovative in terms of its construction
It’s entirely fair to compare it to building a house – especially one costing £450,000!!! – at that cost it would hardly be a standard build!
Point Im trying to make is that a “private” house build project would most likely be a major expense to any of those who planned this project, and I doubt if any of them would have approved a situation where a vast overspend could occur ….when it would be their own money they were spending!!
Ive worked in Engineering for over 40 years and been involved in some VERY VERY advanced projects with the MOD and other large customers / contractors. (and it happens that the company I worked for as a design engineer was a Major Shrewsbury Employer!!
Some projects took weeks if not months to prepare a tender response for – and in many cases involved us quoting for undertaking original design work which we STILL had to cost accurately!! –
So if we were able to do it – this “slinky” project is NO different .
Sorry – but at the end of the day this is project should have been a fairly straightforward build!
God knows how we managed to send a man to the moon in the late 60′s!! – over 40 years ago!!
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“I would question the poor advice given to the council that resulted in them incurring a further cost of over £120,000 in legal fees, fruitlessly fighting the builders.”
Where do you think this advice came from, Eva, a guy behind the bar in the pub?
No it came either from their own team of “legal experts” or from one of very expensive consultants, that they have to employ to make up for in the lack of knowledge in their own staff.
Either way it is ANOTHER good example of how public servants get it wrong and throw even more of our money down the drain.
Have an enquiry and sack or sue the people responsible, I say.
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“This sculpture was pushing boundaries with an interesting building material that requires massive skill to get right.”
What rubbish, about twenty years ago they knocked down a concrete bridge (the free bridge) in Ironbridge which spanned the river Severn and was built in 1909…perhaps we should have had the slinky built in 1909, when people were capable of building concrete structures and getting them to meet up in the middle?
(The bridge was probably built in less time too)
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