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A wise use of 20p, York Castle Museum

Further to my last blog about Brighton Council’s proposed £430,000 replacement of the two lifts in my building, I did my own investigations.

I spoke to Thyssen Krupp, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of lifts. Obviously they haven’t inspected the job and don’t know exactly what’s involved, but they were happy to give me ballpark figures for replacement of two lifts.

There were several options, from refurbishment to full replacement, including stopping at alternate floors as they do now, or making both stop at all floors. But the bottom line is that this work should be costing no more than…

£270,000

And that’s without the economies of scale that you could negotiate with a several-month contract to install new lifts in half a dozen or more buildings.

So there’s a 40% markup somewhere along the way. I will not be letting this drop.

With thanks to Simon, area sales rep of Thyssen Krupp and jolly nice guy. 

I’ve already written about Brighton Council’s new communal TV aerial for my building, which cost a mere £13,000 to install. But today I got an even bigger shock through the post.

I live in an 11-storey block, and there are a pair of lifts. The lifts are old, yes. But they work. Occasionally, they break down. But they’re soon fixed (usually a day or so). Today, I learned that the council have put out a contract to have both lifts replaced.

The cost to me, personally, is estimated to be over £10,000.

That’s a cost to the block of almost £500,000. Half a million pounds.  I live in one of half a dozen blocks on this road. So that’s £3 million cost to the council and its leaseholders in one easy swoop. Ludicrous.

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