Houses of Parliament restoration work.. Cost £5.7 bn and will take 32 years to complete.

bring back mr fawkes

Money well spent.

It'll be on cowboy builders in a few years.

ridiculous amount

It's a big building. They could upgrade that clock to a digital one, clockwork is so old fashioned.

And could get it sponsored? The "Sports Direct Parliamentary Arena" has a certain ring.

lead.

If they move it out of london how much is that going to cost in extra expenses to house all the MPs who will already have london accomodation, and it will be by definition away from the highest concentration of consituencies anyway, and also the offices of state/civil servants?

It seems pointless gesture politics to me, and I'm in favour of decentralisation.

I think they should. If they do enough of rework with 3 billion to last another 200 years thats just 15 million a year. I've never been in them but they are world famous and part of being British and far more than just a debating chamber.

I know a few Polish lads who could do it cheaper and a lot quicker.

Breath-taking both inside and out. A real sense of history about the place. Would be sacrilege to even contemplate letting it go to ruin.

You say that but what are they going to do, knock it down?
It's a historical palace FFS.
And though I've not been in it AFAIK it's a massive building that does a lot of government not just a debating chamber. I like good old buildings, they were built to last.
Modern cr*p falls apart after 30 years never mind 300.

As JC has already pointed out it is not a lot year by year spend.

The scottish parliament cost something like 0.5 billion, 1/6 of the size of this refurbishment, and it's much smaller, ugly as hell, and AFAIK has large maintenance costs, and is already falling apart.

What are you going to get for your 3 billion for this purpose, and where?

Do you really think they'll level the old building? And what, put up a Tesco?

The sensible thing would be build something suited to MP needs with good debating areas, restaurants, bars, private MP rooms. admin staff rooms, computer server rooms, communications rooms, good security features, air conditioning?
It will be a waste of money trying to put lipstick on that pig.  Renovation will be a nice contract for someone - take as long as you want, charge as much as you want.
They could build a modern building while replicating the outside appearance of the present premises.

It doesn't need any work done at this moment, it should be maintained as and when problems occur, we can look at the problem again in 100 years time, by then it may not matter.

"It doesn't need any work done at this moment". Fantastic news! A couple of questions though? :
Are you
1. A structural engineer
2. A stonemason
3. An architect.
4. None none of the above, Ian Beal from Eastenders probably knows more about stonemasonry
Did you conduct your site survey from
5. A ladder
6. A cherry picker
7. Scaffolding
8. A site walk-around with binoculars in good light conditions
9. Your sofa, have absolutely no idea about it but it's got a big clock in a tower on ITN news?

Seriously thought, stitch in time and all that. It applies to buildings as well.

"Right," said Fred, "Both of us together
One each end and steady as we go."
Tried to shift it, couldn't even lift it
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea and

"Right," said Fred, "Give a shout for Charlie."
Up comes Charlie from the floor below.
After strainin', heavin' and complainin'
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea.

And Charlie had a think, and he thought we ought to take off all the handles
And the things wot held the candles.
But it did no good, well I never thought it would

"All right," said Fred, "Have to take the feet off
To get them feet off wouldn't take a mo."
Took its feet off, even took the seat off
Should have got us somewhere but no!
So Fred said, "Let's have another cuppa tea."
And we said, "right-o."

"Right," said Fred, "Have to take the door off
Need more space to shift the so-and-so."
Had bad twinges taking off the hinges
And it got us nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea and

"Right," said Fred, "Have to take the wall down,
That there wall is gonna have to go."
Took the wall down, even with it all down
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea.

And Charlie had a think, and he said, "Look, Fred,
I got a sort of feelin'
If we remove the ceiling
With a rope or two we could drop the blighter through."

"All right," said Fred, climbing up a ladder
With his crowbar gave a mighty blow.
Was he in trouble, half a ton of rubble landed on the top of his dome.
So Charlie and me had another cuppa tea
And then we went home.

(I said to Charlie, "We'll just have to leave it
Standing on the landing, that's all
You see the trouble with Fred is, he's too hasty
You'll never get nowhere if you're too hasty.")

Should restore everything from Fountains Abbey to Stonehenge by that logic. They're all tourist attractions and symbols of Britain.

I can believe the quoted costs and timescale. It cost me the best part of two years and 30 grand to restore a small 18th-century end-of-terrace that was crumbling owing to 20th-century cement render, gypsum plaster, insulation, damp-proofing etc. You simply can't do these things on an ad-hoc basis, or the problems such as damp in the unrepaired areas simply migrate to the restored ones