If it was in the Far or Middle East 5-6 years, North America slightly longer but not much. The UK God knows, some time never. This is based on working on airport construction projects in these areas, and the UK. My general observation would be that in the UK projects are run as a "demorcracy" in that everybody gets a say in what they want, and a design is finalized, which is the same as in the other areas. However where as in other areas a design freeze is applied at that stage, on UK projects variouse groups continue to dable / change items through out the design / construction phase leading to job over runs, and resultant extra costs. The latter in the UK invaribly seems to end up in court or the contractor / sub contractor goes bust ie Wembly and variouse Olympic projects.
Simple recipe in developing world. Decide what you want (arrange finance), where you want it, design it to cover what you need, and a view to future requirments where known, and build it.
Uk recipe. Start debate as to what you want with no idea of budget. Finaly get idea of what you want and then discuss where you are going to build it and have typical North / South argument at the same time with a dash of Green policy on the side. Hold public enquiry which takes years to allow every party to comment / disagree and drags on as we all know making some consultants very rich ( I know one individual who has consulted on infrastructure projects all their life and has yet to have anything built but lives very well on it!.) After protracted expensive navel gazing decide on what, where, and when ,but still do not freeze design. Start project construction with ongoing issues still in the air, and face cost and time overuns as a result, coupled with press comments about poor state of managment in UK construction industry which is often unjustified.
My own view re Borris Island is build it by all means another London centric project like the Channel Tunnel (Northern line extension in my book) . But it will not get me to use it no matter what transport link there is from the rest of the country, as I do, and always will, use Manchester or Leeds / Bradford as they are closer and currently offer flights to the places I need to go.
Will get off hobby horse now.
