The public and conservation groups blamed for collapse of Hungate HQ scheme (From York Press)

Oooooh, the Lib Dums not accepting any responsibity, how strange.
For the sake of York resign please!

The public is to blame? That's very convenient - is that the same public who elected the Liberal Democrat clowns to office?

It's amazing what a cesspool local poltics is, surely there must be better people in York than this to run our fantastic city?

The public and conservation groups blamed for collapse of Hungate HQ scheme

er, 'blamed'? Shouldn't this read 'praised'?

Grumpy Old Feller wrote:
Oooooh, the Lib Dums not accepting any responsibity, how strange. For the sake of York resign please!

Agreed.

Funny how the press fails to mention which party Coun Keith Aspden (Committee chairman) is a member of. Or the composition of the committee.

Ah, well I'm happy with the outcome - now we know English Heritage and other conservation groups are to blame, I expect the Lib Dum council will begin legal proceedings at once to recover our millions... :)

How typical of this Council to blame the taxpayer. Why cant they just apologise, admit they got it wrong, and move on and learn from their mistakes?

So its got nothing to do with the fact that it is the ugliest looking building to be designed since the cr@ppy 70's Stonebow buildings then.

Strewth. All we, i.e. the poor hapless public, did was to slag it off as a design "abortion" - which it was. I likened it to the sarcophagus surrounding the Chernobyl reactor and thereafter somebody christened it the "nuclear bunker". If we have saved this City from that carbuncle then I'll wear that medal with pride.

I would now like to see independent auditors pick over the amateur-ish project management of this council. They've been slagged off for this before and I await with relish their report.

So it's got nothing to do with CYC ignoring their own planning guidelines. If a private developer had want to build such a monstrosity towering over the Black Swan, I doubt they would have been granted planning permission.

The Lib Dems are NEVER responsible for THEIR actions.

I think the public can be proud of their part in stopping this awful building.

Surely the architects are partly to blame for designing something that doesn't fit in with any of it's surroundings? And so too are those councillors who were satisfied with the drawings.

Time to start again, and appoint some architects with some knowledge of York and it's architectural history.

....And blaming the public for having their say....isn't that called democracy??

I once bought may parents a Teasmade back in the 80's, and it looks exactly the same as the artists impression.

We do not want buildings that look like cr@p@y Bullseye prizes blighting our beautiful city.

Where are you ROBERTS, I want to see your comment justifing the Liberals conceited attitude to teh Hungate and the Barbican mis-projects, Im sorry im a one the thousands of people that are to blame except of course, THE MIGHTY LIBERALS who are FAULTLESS!!!!
Infact please any Liberal party councilor please defend this, as I need a good laugh today

Coun Gillies said: “There are a lot of people in this project who have convinced themselves they have done nothing wrong.”

This applies to most (if not all) LibDum councillors if the stories on this site are anything to go by...
The public is always wrong! Hmmm...

who are ya wrote:
Where are you ROBERTS, I want to see your comment justifing the Liberals conceited attitude to teh Hungate and the Barbican mis-projects, Im sorry im a one the thousands of people that are to blame except of course, THE MIGHTY LIBERALS who are FAULTLESS!!!! Infact please any Liberal party councilor please defend this, as I need a good laugh today

You have missed the point. In saying that "the public" are to blame, the lib dems ARE holding their hands up to responsibility. After all, they are members of the public too!

That's as good an apology as you'e going to get!

Interesting claim this. The public etc had no input into this scheme except to tell it like it was... er Rubbish! Totally unacceptable! Someone needs to resign.

So it was nothing to do with the fact that the new lib dem approved designed building was not big enough to house all COYC council staff after all.

So it must be the public to blame.

How kind of them especially when it is not their money they are spending.

Apt security word

SIZE-SING

Kynnersley wrote:
So it's got nothing to do with CYC ignoring their own planning guidelines. If a private developer had want to build such a monstrosity towering over the Black Swan, I doubt they would have been granted planning permission.

The Lib Dems are NEVER responsible for THEIR actions.

How very true.

The council just don't understand that they have to follow the same rules as everybody else. the only difference is that WE have to pay for THEIR mistakes.

ouseswimmer wrote:
Interesting claim this. The public etc had no input into this scheme except to tell it like it was... er Rubbish! Totally unacceptable! Someone needs to resign.

Yes! The public must resign!

Whats wrong with the council turning their other great idea (the Barbican) into their HQ.

Stand by your previous mistakes and turn it's fortune around, which COULD also raise the councils own level of integrity.

Security word very, very apt - help-song

Where is Roberts hiding???

RingoStarr wrote:
The public and conservation groups blamed for collapse of Hungate HQ scheme

er, 'blamed'? Shouldn't this read 'praised'?

Total agree with Ringo. I could not of put it better myself!

So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Very interesting article, and some confused comments.

Not sure why opposition councillors are complaining. This was a scrutiny set up by them with a majority of them so any alleged failings in the report are down to them. They hoped to find some kind of smoking gun culpability but there was none.

As for the comments. Th epublic are not being blamed for the project. What the report actrually says is that public aspiration led to the budget increasing.

The failings of the design were to do it as cheaply as possible which one would expect the usual suspects on here would want. We could have a fantastic beautiful building on Hungate. Somehow I don't think people would have been happy with a £150 million Frank Gehry desiogn eating into council tax. Cheap building = cheap design simple as that.

As for the collapse of the project. English Heritage, an unelecte dbody, made the decision that a building of necessary size was not suitable for the site. The council were aware of this danger and included EH throughout the process to make sure any concerns were brought to light. EH repeatedly said they were happy, suggested changes which were made, then at the last minute completely flipped there position. This wa sproven throgh as Freedom of Information Act. EH refused to attend the meeting to explain this.

As for the loss of £1.1 million I would be very surprised if this ever materialises. It must be taken as part of the project as a whole and will easily be made back on various land sales and efficiency savings on the project as a whole

mztripps wrote:
So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD)
Cllr Holvey (LD)
Cllr Gunnel (Lab)
Cllr Pierce (Lab)
Cllr Brooks (Con)
Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting)

This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes

a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive

b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

A real independent report would have no councillors involved whatsoever.

independent (NOT INFLUENCED) Show phonetics
adjective
1 not influenced or controlled in any way by other people, events or things:
an independent enquiry/organization

They all made the same comment, quite independent of each other (= without deciding together to do so).

2 describes a politician who does not agree or vote with any particular political party

3 SPECIALIZED describes a grammatical clause which forms part of a sentence but can also form a separate sentence


What about getting a neutral body to carry out the report????

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote: So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD) Cllr Holvey (LD) Cllr Gunnel (Lab) Cllr Pierce (Lab) Cllr Brooks (Con) Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting) This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

Roberts. Surely, even yourself would admit that the council would not approve such an application from any other party? The thing was an eye-sore. I suspect that the problem comes down to the available land/budget versus the number of people you needed to shoe-horn in there. This limitation in itself produces very boring and square buildings. Somebody should have realised from a much earlier point that this design would never succeed. However, when I read the council minutes concerning the 'over-sight' of the project, councillors were looking forward to issues concerning the construction phase and their relationship with the contractors, obviously assuming that this carbunkle was going to get approved without problems??

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote:
So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD)
Cllr Holvey (LD)
Cllr Gunnel (Lab)
Cllr Pierce (Lab)
Cllr Brooks (Con)
Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting)

This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes

a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive

b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

Once again you show your bias by not:

1) Naming the Lib Dems responsible

2) Point out that the Lib Dems have the chair and therefore overall control


It's the usual spin and the usual cover up.

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote:
So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD)
Cllr Holvey (LD)
Cllr Gunnel (Lab)
Cllr Pierce (Lab)
Cllr Brooks (Con)
Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting)

This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes

a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive

b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

Oh hang on, for once you did name the Lib Dems. My mistake (unusual abbreviation by the way).

Still didn't say they have control though.

If the Council think the public is to blame, would it not be best now, as Brecht said of Stalin, for the Council "to dissolve the public, and elect another"?

Kiff wrote:

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote:
So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD)
Cllr Holvey (LD)
Cllr Gunnel (Lab)
Cllr Pierce (Lab)
Cllr Brooks (Con)
Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting)

This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes

a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive

b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

Oh hang on, for once you did name the Lib Dems. My mistake (unusual abbreviation by the way).

Still didn't say they have control though.

Err no the vote is 3:2 as I said so they do NOT have control. ANy vote to block any information would be defeated by a 3:2 vote.

The Chair issue is irrelevant as the casting vote is only used if the vote is tied which would not happen

We the public are guilty for having aspirations from CYC, sadly we thought that after electing incompetent leaders that by letting them have money to build a building to house their staff which they messed up. Speaking for us the public we are sorry that we voted you in and let you have access to money to effectively throw away, now can we have an apology back?

Kiff wrote:

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote:
So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD)
Cllr Holvey (LD)
Cllr Gunnel (Lab)
Cllr Pierce (Lab)
Cllr Brooks (Con)
Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting)

This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes

a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive

b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

Oh hang on, for once you did name the Lib Dems. My mistake (unusual abbreviation by the way).

Still didn't say they have control though.

"petethefeet, York says...
3:30pm Mon 27 Apr 09"

Thank you for a reasoned argument unusual on here.

I don't however agree. The usual Risk Assessments were undertaken and the possibility of not getting planning was taken into account. This was mitigated by involving bodies such as English Heritage from the start of the process. This allowed them to feed into the design, as they did, rather than objecting at the end.

You can't however mitigate for someone telling you one thing all along then suddenly flipping completely. The action of English Heritage was disgaceful. There refusal to attend the committee and explain even more reprehensible. I think there should be some investigation of there actions by whoever they are accountable to (if anyway)

roberts wrote:

Kiff wrote:

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote: So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD) Cllr Holvey (LD) Cllr Gunnel (Lab) Cllr Pierce (Lab) Cllr Brooks (Con) Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting) This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

Oh hang on, for once you did name the Lib Dems. My mistake (unusual abbreviation by the way). Still didn't say they have control though.

"petethefeet, York says... 3:30pm Mon 27 Apr 09" Thank you for a reasoned argument unusual on here. I don't however agree. The usual Risk Assessments were undertaken and the possibility of not getting planning was taken into account. This was mitigated by involving bodies such as English Heritage from the start of the process. This allowed them to feed into the design, as they did, rather than objecting at the end. You can't however mitigate for someone telling you one thing all along then suddenly flipping completely. The action of English Heritage was disgaceful. There refusal to attend the committee and explain even more reprehensible. I think there should be some investigation of there actions by whoever they are accountable to (if anyway)

Why arent the Lib Dums held accountable, instead of trying to blame evryone else but themselves?

Hope they carry on myself.. 29 cllrs to 19 to pop in 2011.

British voters have always forgiven bungling councils. Arrogance is another story...

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote: So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD) Cllr Holvey (LD) Cllr Gunnel (Lab) Cllr Pierce (Lab) Cllr Brooks (Con) Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting) This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

But Roberts as the Conservatives have propped the Lib Dems up the opposition is effectively 2:3 in favour of the Lib Dems

The Victorians built some really iconic Town Halls eg Manchester, Sheffield. OK so these have needed lots of expenditure to meet present day legislation for mobilty/sight restricted staff and visitors.
My first thoughts on seeing the Hungate scheme were that the architects retained by CoYC had created a modern version of Stonebow House.
I'm all for getting all the staff under one roof, and preferably in a central site to maximise travel choices.
Perhaps a design competition would have been the best option.

Direct question for Roberts - Are the Lib Dems totally blameless in this whole thing?

So, let me get this right! I've been robbed, but it's MY fault?

That's brilliant! Thank-you COYC.

Well York City Council never admit that they are wrong on any thing as they are always chasing to look like any other City but York

It was simply put ; A grandiose scheme poorly carried out, Suitable accommodation was and is available, had a more down to earth view been taken; As it is, the citizens of York will foot the bill; Shame.

All the councillors and officers involved must be over the moon with their fabulousness

Kynnersley, Huntington says...
6:04pm Mon 27 Apr 09

Are you seriously suggesting that with an election 2 months away the Conservatives in York have turned down an opportunity to lamabst there closest rivals the Lib Dems?

Somehow I think not. If they could have found any eveidence pointing to council culpability they would have screamed it from the roof tops

Andrew Wallers Very Guilty Conscience wrote:
Direct question for Roberts - Are the Lib Dems totally blameless in this whole thing?

In my opinion no. They should have been more ambituous, spent more and gone for a more inspirational design. But that is just my opinion. I think if I put it to the vote on here most people would've gone for the cheaper option.

This council is a blo@dy joke!

We need to take action, they are just wasting our money.

Lets get them out to answer for all their mistakes and then get them out of their lovely easy jobs.

If I wanted comedy, I'd watch Del boy and not read about the council.

I can understand everyone being miffed at this shambolic council, so instead of sounding off on this site can i suggest you all register to speak at the last scrutiny meeting on Friday 1st May at 5.00 pm you may get a reaction from the people who count

roberts wrote:

Andrew Wallers Very Guilty Conscience wrote: Direct question for Roberts - Are the Lib Dems totally blameless in this whole thing?

In my opinion no. They should have been more ambituous, spent more and gone for a more inspirational design. But that is just my opinion. I think if I put it to the vote on here most people would've gone for the cheaper option.

Hi Roberts. You are either a councillor, share a bed with one, or a fly on their wall.

Two points:

1). The way that councils work is to consult with other interested bodies before they approached the public. This seems reasonable enough BUT these interested parties only hear one side of the story at this time. English Heritage haven't got the resourse to scrutinise all the submitted plans in-depth so they expect councils to do the honourable thing and don't sell them a pup! When the public backlash came obvious, they woke up.

2) It's a puzzle to me why the council embarked on the path of getting this eyesore accepted? Surely, they always new it would fall? I'm concerned that this is a ruse that will eventually result in a totally new £65 million project and then, when we baulk, we will (again) be blamed for blocking the cheaper £40m project.

Readers.....you heard it here first. Just watch!

I'd love to but I am normally parked on the A64 till at least 1900hrs.

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote:
So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD)
Cllr Holvey (LD)
Cllr Gunnel (Lab)
Cllr Pierce (Lab)
Cllr Brooks (Con)
Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting)

This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes

a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive

b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

Am I the only one to stop the irony in this comment? The Lib Dem's are being accused of not taking responsibility for their actions and the only person to come to their defence makes the statistic out to read as if the Lib Dems are the minority partner in this fiasco. A clear attempt to avoid responsibility!

Since the basic premise that the Lib Dems are a minority is incorrect the conclusions drawn from them cannot be valid either.

Roberts, until the day comes where the Conservatives and Labour decide to work together this idea of a 3:2 split against the Lib Dems is a case of "lies, **** lies and statistics". The simple fact is that are the most powerful party on the committee responsible; all be it a slim lead. They've also got overall control on the council, where the final decisions are made.

I've said this before, but the underlying problem with the council appears to be its culture of arrogance. They've waisted a huge amount of money in this scheme by selling their existing offices and moving the homeless centre in the expectation that they would be granted planning permission. Anybody, private individual, organisation or registered charity could have lodged an objection, yet this possibility never occurred to the council!

It's only a few months since a prominent local builder used these pages to complain about the "cosy" relationship between the council and it's planning department. If that's not a damming observation, then I don't know who would be better qualified to comment.

Now consider the other white elephants the council have waisted money on; Barabican Centre, Cultural Quarter, so-called environmental project.

What we need is an *INDEPENDENT* investigation to what when on and the actions of the councillors involved. The council deciding to clear it's self is just a further example of this culture of arrogance

"It concludes that the original budget of £35.6 million was enough to meet the original brief, but says “the public’s expectations and aspirations” resulted in changes, which meant more money had to be spent."

Wonderful. CYC tables a proposal, stupidly spends money on it in the meantime, then when people object, and it fails, it's the people's fault! What a load of cr@p! Shouldn't the public’s expectations and aspirations have been ascertained at the outset if that was to be a major issue (which I doubt)? No. It seems that, without any public consultation, CYC went ahead with a project that was very likely to fail on many counts, and then have the audacity to blame the public & EH for it's failure. If I did that in my work I would be out of a job. Please let this happen here and let us be rid of the numptie Lib Dems who couldn't plan a way to find their own ar$e$!

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote: So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD) Cllr Holvey (LD) Cllr Gunnel (Lab) Cllr Pierce (Lab) Cllr Brooks (Con) Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting) This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

So Roberts your concept of independent is a committee populated with the very people we would like investigating? That is the same as asking the TSG to investigate the death of Ian Tomlinson. Get a grip Roberts, if that's your idea of independent then no wonder you and the report are clearly a huge joke in York.

And there is a smoking gun. You just have to look for it. Properly and with no interference from anyone who relies on public votes for their living.

mztripps wrote:

roberts wrote:

mztripps wrote: So an internal council report absolved the council executive of all responsibility? I wonder what an independent report would say? What a complete joke.

Cllr Aspden (LD) Cllr Holvey (LD) Cllr Gunnel (Lab) Cllr Pierce (Lab) Cllr Brooks (Con) Cllr Taylor (Green Non voting) This gives the opposition a 3:2 spliut over the lib Dems on this committee. So unless either of them decided to hide some information to make the Lib Dems look good (which would be a little odd) there are only 2 possible outcomes a) the findings are correct and there was no culpability from the executive b) the Lab and Tory cllrs on the committee were incompetent. The Executive was culapbale but they couldn't find the crucial evidence.

So Roberts your concept of independent is a committee populated with the very people we would like investigating? That is the same as asking the TSG to investigate the death of Ian Tomlinson. Get a grip Roberts, if that's your idea of independent then no wonder you and the report are clearly a huge joke in York.

And there is a smoking gun. You just have to look for it. Properly and with no interference from anyone who relies on public votes for their living.

Typical of the misinformation that is spread on here.

The people you supposedly want to investigate is the Council Executive who made the decision. I think blaming Jenny Brooks, Roger Pierce and Julie Gunnell is a little harsh as a) neither of their parties had any say in the decision. b) none of them were even councillors when the decisions were taken.

Who is likely to be more critical of a ruling Lib Dem exec, an independent body or opposition councillors?

You are correct in one assumption the committee was not independent, it was stacked with a political agenda to be hyper critical of the Lib Dems

Pete

I'm constantly amazed by the way you assume that anybody who looks at both sides of the story must be a councillor/sleep with a councillor etc. If anything this is surely a back handed complement to all 47 councillors as you are suggesting they are the only people capable of weighing both sides of the story before making an informed decision

"

onlooker, Near York says...
12:43am Tue 28 Apr 09
"It concludes that the original budget of £35.6 million was enough to meet the original brief, but says “the public’s expectations and aspirations” resulted in changes, which meant more money had to be spent." "

Again not correct though probably led by the misinformation in the headline. As the quote you used states clearly, the public have NOT been blamed for the failure of the product. One of the questions the committee asked was why the budget increased. The answer to that was to meet public expectation. Despite the misleading headline that is all the public is being "blamed" for

One word!
Whitewash

For the council to be blameless it has to be whiter than white, this is totally untrue!! CoY council have made mistake after mistake on this project, the plans once were too small for all their staff! was just one, Hugate could be "Jorvic centre 2" - a bigger museum if the conservationists were to blame!!

roberts wrote:

Andrew Wallers Very Guilty Conscience wrote: Direct question for Roberts - Are the Lib Dems totally blameless in this whole thing?

In my opinion no. They should have been more ambituous, spent more and gone for a more inspirational design. But that is just my opinion. I think if I put it to the vote on here most people would've gone for the cheaper option.

Roberts.

"Put it to the vote on here". Operative words in that quote are ON HERE. I think the vast majority, if not all, of the York population would like a better service at a lower price. That is obvious.

The benefits of the Hungate HQ (or indeed any central one-building HQ have been drilled into us since day one, it is not the benefits we are questioning (although that is a seperate issue). The fact remains that the public want better service at a lower price.

As a result, York council should (at least try and) create a building at utter basic price, in order to provide the reduction in cost we all want. Throwing our money at some executives fancy-schmancy something-to-remembe
r-me-by project will only annoy the punters, i.e. the public, especially when it all goes wrong.

There is a strong assumption that this project was just the lib-dem something-to-remembe
r-us-by. After all, there isn't a hope that they will get re-elected based on the various fiascos that are knocking about. After all, hasn't the decision now been made to utilise one of the existing empty buildings?? I am still awaiting that the budget for the HQ project will be trimmed accordingly if this is the case - but it won't be. There is £35.however many million in the pot, and **** it, £35.however million will be spent. Wasted, rather.

Rather apt security word.

Skin-whom.

skin the ****ing council, that's who.

"mystic_genius, Acomb says...
7:57am Wed 29 Apr 09"

Confused here as you appear to be agreeing with me. The whole point is the council DID go for the cheapest possible option. This led to the public complaining about the design being s**t. As it stands then you are saying that you support the original proposal as the cheapest build option and the one that delivered the highest level of savings. You should be aiming your ire at English Heritage then

Eejit!
Cllr Roberts should have remained a ficticious character on Corrie!

roberts wrote:
"mystic_genius, Acomb says...
7:57am Wed 29 Apr 09"

Confused here as you appear to be agreeing with me. The whole point is the council DID go for the cheapest possible option. This led to the public complaining about the design being s**t. As it stands then you are saying that you support the original proposal as the cheapest build option and the one that delivered the highest level of savings. You should be aiming your ire at English Heritage then

But Roberts, English Heritage are not villains of the story and should not be treated as Scape Goats. As I say, any other group or individual could have raised the same objection. As you yourself admit this is a cheap option. If we are being honest and the picture at the top of this web page is anything to go by, it shows.

At the end of the day any competent manager would have realised that there was a risk that planning permission would not be granted, no matter what project they are involved with or design was picked. Knowing that they would have made appropriate contingency plans.

Regrettably the council were so sure that permission would be granted that they burnt their bridges. Why was this?

Existing building were let go and the homeless centre was moved. The appropriate action would have been waiting until permission had been granted before running up these costs. English Heritage can not be blamed for this poor, and I would say arrogant, style of management.

How can blame for this extra, and ultimately pointless, set of costs lie with anybody other then the council?

roberts wrote:
"mystic_genius, Acomb says... 7:57am Wed 29 Apr 09" Confused here as you appear to be agreeing with me. The whole point is the council DID go for the cheapest possible option. This led to the public complaining about the design being s**t. As it stands then you are saying that you support the original proposal as the cheapest build option and the one that delivered the highest level of savings. You should be aiming your ire at English Heritage then

No they didn't.

From what I understand of the Hungate fiasco, the council wanted to BUILD A NEW HQ. That in itself would cost (apparently) £35.whatever million. Now, they (the council) have decided to scrap the whole thing, and utilise existing large office space within the city. My question/statement is:

1) The council must be aware of the office utilisation/leasing in the city, so why wasn't this avenue explored in the first place - wasting over £1m of public money.

2) What is the new, lowered, budget, to reflect the fact they are no longer building a new HQ - or is the council suggesting it will still cost £35.whatever million to move existing staff to another building?

I agree that the Hungate was the cheapest BUILD option. What I am questioning is why the **** did they decide to BUILD A NEW OFFICE when MOVING TO AN EXISTING OFFICE would be far cheaper!! AND is the option we've ended up at anyway!!!!

My argument rests upon the fact that this development was the brain-child of someone who has a desire to be remembered, as opposed to feeding the needs of the community. If the community needs a centralised one-stop-shop, then supply one. But if that is going to cost £35 million for a new one, or (to be confirmed how much) less for a second hand one, PICK THE CHEAPER OPTION!!!!

From a Norwich Unions (sson to be Aviva) staff update :

The Yorkshire House building is one of two city centre buildings that City of York Council is considering for new city council headquarters.

As part of the ongoing bidding process we've been asked to create some architects drawings of how the building could look to meet the needs of the council.

The plans will be shared with residents of York this week as part of the consultation process the council must do. I just wanted to let you know this was happening, so if you're interested in seeing the designs you can do.

More information will be made available:

Posters in council reception points, libraries, community centres, etc - by 29th April.

Press Release made public - 1 May

Advert placed in press - 30th April.

Commence delivery of consultation document - 1st May.

On the Council website: www.york.gov.uk
There will also be a public exhibition in York (not sure where yet) on the 26, 27 & 28 May 09.