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Cycle path costs


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^ Cherry picking facts and data to support what they've already decided, seems to be the one they're best at these days. That, and always going for the Rolls Royce option for everything, even if it only applies to the price, and they're ending up with a wobbly old ratty shed or two - like the White House and school.

Edited by Ghostrider
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It's the mentality of some officials that is, possibly, the main problem here in so much as, if it's not their idea, they are going to p*ss on it if they can but, having said that, and, speaking as someone who used to cycle Scalloway > Lerwick and back on a regular basis, putting in a cycle track would indeed be pretty expensive and it would be unlikely to make the journey any "easier".

 

You can't just take a bit of the existing road away from other vehicles, you have to widen it to accommodate cycles. 

This means that you will almost certainly have to acquire the extra land and/or maybe re-align the road then, there would be some major engineering required in many places as there is not enough "flat" ground alongside the road so you would have to dig out a lot of sections and fill in a lot of other sections..  All this stuff costs but, whether it would cost 7 million, I do not know and, whatever it costs , it would be quite a large spend just to accommodate a very small percentage of the population who like to ride their cyces in the summer.

 

If they (SIC) really want to spend money on cyclists, why not put in some cycle tunnels between different places?  By their nature, they would be relatively flat, more economical to install(?),away from the worst of the weather, a lot cheaper to maintain(?) and a lot safer as they would keep cyclists away from other traffic.

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When we wanted a football pitch, we got a bit of land, and then the players came out and worked the ground. There might have been a grant from the council to help with land purchase. Similarly we built miles of peat hill road with the peatcutters as labour. Ok that was probably 3 decades ago.

Surely if the acquire the land and the council donated road metal and chips the cyclists could turn out and provide the labour.

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If the track goes via the South road, will they be considering using the old road at the Hollanders Knowe which maybe could link onto the existing old road between Sandyloch and Staney Hill (going around the back of Sandy Loch?) or if the North Road, the old road between the Scord and Brig o Fitch. I can only assume with the high costs, none of these current tracks have been incorporated to enable costs to be kept down?

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I remember being asked some years ago to provide a quote for work on a number of council houses.

One of the houses I was told had been done by the DLO but they were far too expensive.

 

Isn't that a damning indictment of their own workforce? What this man was saying was that their

own council workers took too long so they had to ask a private company.

 

So as far as I'm concerned the ludicrous figure for a cycle path is probably costed on the average

output of the DLO.

 

Why are there so many council employees if the council cant afford to hand them contracts?

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It really does appear stupid amount of money, I don’t think anyone minds paying for an honest day hard work with a little bit of profit on top, anything else is just wrong.

More people allow this happen with or without back scratching it continues.

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Can anyone tell me how the council came to a cost of 1 million for 1Km of foot/cycle path for going round the Clickimin (according to the news). This seems a bit extravagant for small bit of tarmac ?

 

Who was on the make on this one?

 

Does anyone remember which company built the Clickimin pathway?

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Can anyone tell me how the council came to a cost of 1 million for 1Km of foot/cycle path for going round the Clickimin (according to the news). This seems a bit extravagant for small bit of tarmac ?

 

Who was on the make on this one?

 

Does anyone remember which company built the Clickimin pathway?

 

 

I would hazard a guess that the cost of land aquisition, site surveys, creating engineering and design blueprints, along with the merry go round through finance, planning, legal, admin and god knows what else council office to make sure all the t's were crossed and i's dotted on every document, however superfluous, along with the overseeing and managing of the contact while it was ongoing swallowed up far, far more of the Million than the cheque the contractor got for the actual work.....Unless someone knows otherwise???

 

Spending money with nothing to show for it is easy, and the Council are experts at it. Its especially easy when professionals (allegedly) in one SIC department are charging out their time at theoretical commercial rates to some other SIC department - Its an exercise in one head of the monster stealing food from the plates feeding the other heads of itself, even though it all ends up in one belly and all the plates are all filled from one pot in one kitchen. All it achieves is creating un-necessary costs in having to pay more bean counters and scribes to keep track on what route it all takes, and make sure the numbers tally as it goes.

 

I seem to think it was Tulloch's who did the actual work on the ground, either along with or just before doing the school groundwork and the new merry go round at Lochside, but don't quote me on that.

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