Comment in the press today that Michael O'Leary, as Stansted's largest user, is wanting a big public brouhaha about the grossly inflated costs of the second runway. Simplistically he says that the £4bn project should be able to be done for one quarter of that amount, and he resents paying for the gold-plating that has gone into the design.
There are comments about the construction cost estimates which could have come straight from our discussion about them on this thread (above) a few weeks back. Hello Dublin, nice to see you are with us ...... !
Ferrovial, the new BAA owners (or part owners, it is actually a consortium with Ferrovial the largest investor but Singapore Government Investments also have a substantial stake) are a worldwide construction group, their UK arm is the well-known contractor Amey who you will see all over the country, so they know a thing or two about what building work actually costs.
Interestingly O'Leary has also focused on the amount of land being acquired for the project, describing it as far too much and a "land grab" which will be acquired as part of the runway project but then used for commercial development of retail and business parks.