Taxpayers to dig for £20M for Liverpool Dock

[Dave Hedgehog]

12 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

Hopefully we'll all have timeshare in Joe Anderson's retirement villa.

That'll be Walton Nick won't it....

[Andy Onchan]

1 hour ago, Derek Flint said:

What have they actually got for the money so far?

A new drone.

[littlebushy]

4 hours ago, snowman said:

site video

 

 

https://youtu.be/ggchUdn9OVE

There are as many people working on that as there was on Douglas prom....it'll be finished in no time!

[James Blonde]

17 hours ago, asitis said:

Peel Ports withdrew their offer to build the facility and we still went ahead.

Not based on what I've read.just DOI walked away from it because they (thought) they knew best

[asitis]

On 1/8/2022 at 9:32 AM, Lost Login said:

I thought at the time the IoM owning its own landing stage was the right decision to make on the basis that you were not the mercy of the provider if with regard to the future and the rates might when any initial agreement expired if there were no realistic alternatives.

 

@Stu Peters I noticed you liked this post, as I did for most of it , but with a caveat that there has to be a cost at which this makes no sense. I wondered if you had a view at what point it ceases or ceased to be a sound decision ? I have said many times before that I find it difficult to believe that something that made sound financial  sense at say 20 million, continues to do so as it passes 70 ?.

Or have we now dug ourselves into a hole where whatever it costs to complete we are going to have to do so ?

Edited January 9, 2022 by asitis

[Passing Time]

1 hour ago, asitis said:

@Stu Peters I noticed you liked this post, as I did for most of it , but with a caveat that there has to be a cost at which this makes no sense. I wondered if you had a view at what point it ceases or ceased to be a sound decision ? I have said many times before that I find it difficult to believe that something that made sound financial  sense at say 20 million, continues to do so as it passes 70 ?.

Or have we now dug ourselves into a hole where whatever it costs to complete we are going to have to do so ?

In the meantime, our MHK’s fail to support local businesses sufficiently

[Stu Peters]

1 hour ago, asitis said:

@Stu Peters I noticed you liked this post, as I did for most of it , but with a caveat that there has to be a cost at which this makes no sense. I wondered if you had a view at what point it ceases or ceased to be a sound decision ? I have said many times before that I find it difficult to believe that something that made sound financial  sense at say 20 million, continues to do so as it passes 70 ?.

Or have we now dug ourselves into a hole where whatever it costs to complete we are going to have to do so ?

I don't know if there's a price you could put on this project which is anything other than 'too much'. Like the Prom, Richmond Hill and the NSC slides.

But I voted for the extra funding because to have done otherwise would have wasted £40m+ already spent (and on contract penalty clauses), caused us reputational damage and left us without a Liverpool base. There are allegedly no other suitable alternative locations, and as we've seen lately Heysham has problems of its own so we need a second port. I can only hope that the new Minister and acting CEO of DoI, and the new project people working for us in Liverpool are able to bring this online without your second question being realised.

[Andy Onchan]

4 hours ago, Stu Peters said:

I don't know if there's a price you could put on this project which is anything other than 'too much'. Like the Prom, Richmond Hill and the NSC slides.

But I voted for the extra funding because to have done otherwise would have wasted £40m+ already spent (and on contract penalty clauses), caused us reputational damage and left us without a Liverpool base. There are allegedly no other suitable alternative locations, and as we've seen lately Heysham has problems of its own so we need a second port. I can only hope that the new Minister and acting CEO of DoI, and the new project people working for us in Liverpool are able to bring this online without your second question being realised.

"new project people"??

[asitis]

8 hours ago, Stu Peters said:

I don't know if there's a price you could put on this project which is anything other than 'too much'. Like the Prom, Richmond Hill and the NSC slides.

But I voted for the extra funding because to have done otherwise would have wasted £40m+ already spent (and on contract penalty clauses), caused us reputational damage and left us without a Liverpool base. There are allegedly no other suitable alternative locations, and as we've seen lately Heysham has problems of its own so we need a second port. I can only hope that the new Minister and acting CEO of DoI, and the new project people working for us in Liverpool are able to bring this online without your second question being realised.

Thank you for your reply, the situation is very much as I anticipated. We do need to ensure that these things do not happen again, the taxpayers cannot pay enough tax to keep covering these financial black holes !.

[asitis]

8 hours ago, Stu Peters said:

and as we've seen lately Heysham has problems of its own so we need a second port.

Just read again Stu, needing a second port which cannot be used for freight does not seem too bright an idea sadly, if we are citing Heyshams problems.

[Happier diner]

42 minutes ago, asitis said:

Just read again Stu, needing a second port which cannot be used for freight does not seem too bright an idea sadly, if we are citing Heyshams problems.

I thought the new Liverpool dock cold take freight

[asitis]

11 minutes ago, Happier diner said:

I thought the new Liverpool dock cold take freight

I understood it was not a freight port ! If I'm wrong apologies.

[James Blonde]

57 minutes ago, asitis said:

Just read again Stu, needing a second port which cannot be used for freight does not seem too bright an idea sadly, if we are citing Heyshams problems.

 

14 minutes ago, Happier diner said:

I thought the new Liverpool dock cold take freight

 

3 minutes ago, asitis said:

I understood it was not a freight port ! If I'm wrong apologies.

 

The new Liverpool dock has a clause on the planning permission that says it cannot be routinely used for freight. There is an exemption that allows for a very limited amount of freight to be processed in an emergency situation (say Heysham is blocked) - but certainly there can be no regular carriage of freight through the new Liverpool facility. 

The reason seems to be because it's being built essentially in the middle of a residential area and local residents obviously don't want HGVs rumbling past at all hours of the day. 

 

Absolute genius move by the DOI to go from an absolutely free terminal being offered by Peel Ports to a £70m+ development that isn't fit for purpose because it can't handle freight. 

[asitis]

14 minutes ago, James Blonde said:

 

 

 

The new Liverpool dock has a clause on the planning permission that says it cannot be routinely used for freight. There is an exemption that allows for a very limited amount of freight to be processed in an emergency situation (say Heysham is blocked) - but certainly there can be no regular carriage of freight through the new Liverpool facility. 

The reason seems to be because it's being built essentially in the middle of a residential area and local residents obviously don't want HGVs rumbling past at all hours of the day. 

 

Absolute genius move by the DOI to go from an absolutely free terminal being offered by Peel Ports to a £70m+ development that isn't fit for purpose because it can't handle freight. 

Christ there must be some passenger traffic through there to justify this then !

[joebean]

5 minutes ago, James Blonde said:

 

 

 

The new Liverpool dock has a clause on the planning permission that says it cannot be routinely used for freight. There is an exemption that allows for a very limited amount of freight to be processed in an emergency situation (say Heysham is blocked) - but certainly there can be no regular carriage of freight through the new Liverpool facility. 

The reason seems to be because it's being built essentially in the middle of a residential area and local residents obviously don't want HGVs rumbling past at all hours of the day. 

 

Absolute genius move by the DOI to go from an absolutely free terminal being offered by Peel Ports to a £70m+ development that isn't fit for purpose because it can't handle freight. 

Isn’t the freight issue a bit of a red herring? I don’t think the old Liverpool pier could handle freight either. It’s only an issue if you think that £70m+ of expenditure should lead to an improvement on the current position. The issue here is not really the freight capability but the fact that the cost estimate, that the initial decision to proceed was based on, was so seriously flawed. I want to know why and how such an error was made, who is responsible for this act of apparent gross incompetence, why subsequent “updates” to the costs were inaccurate or misrepresented and what will be done about it. If we pursue other, less relevant, avenues of enquiry the real issue at the centre of this will be lost.