| As officials behind the stock
transfer of Glasgow’s council housing admitted finding a £300m gap between income
and expenditure, a completely credible explanation for the discrepancy has emerged. Roy
Rogers of Larkhall, the builder charged with renovating housing for the new association
told the JT that the initial figure for the work was "just an estimate."
Mr Rogers explained that after costing jumbo bags of sharp sand at his local
Keyline, the final figure for the rebuilding project had to be revised upwards by a
trifling £300m.
Mr Rogers insists that the figures originally scribbled on the back of a betting
slip and presented to the management of the nascent housing association were only to be
taken as a rough guess at likely project costs. |
Senior management at the new
housing association have assured tenants that the funding gap will not necessarily mean
that rents will have to rise. A senior spokesjoist told the JT: "We will be having a
"review" of rents. The same way that your bank "reviews" overdraft
costs - upwards." Meanwhile, as main contractor on the parliament
building, Roy was called upon this week to justify the latest (ahem) review of costs that
sees the project price topping £300m. Apart from the eye-wateringly high figure of £14m
for landscaping there is also the need to bomb proof the building itself.
Roy explains: "First off, Alan Titchmarch doesn’t come cheap and
neither does that bird with the jiggly tits. Second, the building is actually being
"bam-proofed" which means that once the MSPs are in the building, the bams
can’t get out again." |
