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Developers are 'buying their way' out of building affordable housing


HelmutX

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26 minutes ago, CrazyDave said:

Question about what?  Aren’t they going to be rental properties?

The Nurses Home is for key workers. The other development on Demesne Road are all rental, so it’s going to be another DBC ghetto, along with an over 50s development block on Westmorland Road where the doctors accommodation used to be, again rental - no doubt another sheltered scheme. 
 

I have nothing against rental but the amount of money being spent - that’s if by a miracle, it’s to budget, the taxpayers should get a good return, by rights you would charge market rates. Could you imagine the uproar? Not charging market rates means the taxpayers are subsidising, another social housing scheme. There is a great shortage of FTB properties, shared and shared equity homes. At least with owner occupiers, they have an interest in the community and area, and will no doubt look after their homes. 

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2 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

The sheltered housing place in PE is one that springs to mind, there have been many others though.

Care to elaborate with some actual information and facts?

Do you mean the sheltered housing in PE that is being built now? What’s meant to be the issue with that?

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Just now, CrazyDave said:

Care to elaborate with some actual information and facts?

Do you mean the sheltered housing in PE that is being built now? What’s meant to be the issue with that?

No it was a few years ago now, the mechanical and electrical refurbishment tenders. I'm sure if you Google it you'll find the details, most of it came out into the public domain.

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1 minute ago, A fool and his money..... said:

No it was a few years ago now, the mechanical and electrical refurbishment tenders. I'm sure if you Google it you'll find the details, most of it came out into the public domain.

So, one alleged example that you aren’t prepared to give any actual information about then?

Scandalous!

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29 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

No it was a few years ago now, the mechanical and electrical refurbishment tenders. I'm sure if you Google it you'll find the details, most of it came out into the public domain.

You will have to expand on that.  Do you mean the contractors paid money to someone in public office, personally, to secure the contracts? 

Edited by Gladys
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So say the development on Port Erin prom of those yuppy apartments is a 5 million pound job is 1:25 mill of that supposed to be for ftb,

If so that’ll should be enough for about new built ftb 7/8 houses if commissioners donate land.

Edited by GreyWolf
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29 minutes ago, CrazyDave said:

So, one alleged example that you aren’t prepared to give any actual information about then?

Scandalous!

I can't be arsed looking it up to be honest. As far as I can remember there was a lot of collusion between the contractors and for a big and expensive job they were all very close in price on the tender (like very close). I can't remember all the details but there was something about two of the tenders turning up in the same envelope.

I think it was only because there was a new contractor tendering that wasn't in the cartel that anything came to light. The implication was that this sort of thing had been standard practice for years.

There was a bit of fuss about it at the time, I think it led to the forming of government's procurement office who are supposed to handle tenders over £50k and make government purchasing look squeaky clean, I can tell you from personal experience, it is still a very long way from it.

If you choose to believe otherwise then you're welcome to do so.

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29 minutes ago, Gladys said:

You will have to expand on that.  Do you mean the contractors paid money to someone in public office, personally, to secure the contracts? 

That was never proved, the ass covering machine that is the IOM government was working overtime on that one.

I can tell you (without any proof other than my word) that I have witnessed people in public off implying that such payments (not necessarily monetary) would be necessary to be successful in a tender process, there's even one case I can remember where it was explicitly asked for rather than implied.

The construction industry on the island relies on the government, there's no getting away from that, name me any decent sized firm who doesn't do a substantial amount of government work - you can't. 

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7 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

I can't be arsed looking it up to be honest. As far as I can remember there was a lot of collusion between the contractors and for a big and expensive job they were all very close in price on the tender (like very close). I can't remember all the details but there was something about two of the tenders turning up in the same envelope.

I think it was only because there was a new contractor tendering that wasn't in the cartel that anything came to light. The implication was that this sort of thing had been standard practice for years.

There was a bit of fuss about it at the time, I think it led to the forming of government's procurement office who are supposed to handle tenders over £50k and make government purchasing look squeaky clean, I can tell you from personal experience, it is still a very long way from it.

If you choose to believe otherwise then you're welcome to do so.

My experience of government tenders is that there is nothing wrong with the system.

I have won some and lost some.

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Just now, A fool and his money..... said:

That was never proved, the ass covering machine that is the IOM government was working overtime on that one.

I can tell you (without any proof other than my word) that I have witnessed people in public off implying that such payments (not necessarily monetary) would be necessary to be successful in a tender process, there's even one case I can remember where it was explicitly asked for rather than implied.

The construction industry on the island relies on the government, there's no getting away from that, name me any decent sized firm who doesn't do a substantial amount of government work - you can't. 

Honestly, my experience couldn’t be any more different.

The people in government in anyway involved in any tender I have been involved in have always gone to great lengths to make sure neither I or they could be accused of anything underhand.

Even taking it so far as to make sure a meting was on government premises when I suggested we meet in Costa and I buy him a coffee 

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