Houses of Parliament - repair, rebuild, decamp or relocate

[elsiegee40]

The building will have to be repaired and maintained due to its heritage status, but does it need to be upgraded?

 

Personally I'd build a fit for purpose parliament building, stabilise the palace of Westminster and use it as a tourist attraction. It would probably be cheaper

[sted]

I think I would rather see a new purpose built building now myself and that existing site being used as a museum.

 

I imagine that there are many different office blocks and sites in London that could easily accommodate the chambers and their associated offices too if they looked hard enough.

 

Decorating is another massive hidden cost in that building thats probably overlooked, its not like they will be using any cheap £3 a roll wallpaper and cord carpets when rebuilt

 

why London why does everything always have to be London. In these times of austerity make them take their share and send them to I don't know dot rhe sake of argument Milton keenes and im sure a purpose built replacement would be far more sensible than keep adapting the old existing place (though if they want to knock that down with mps inside I can live with that lol

[tmcd35]

There's something about the history of the place and it's home to the parliamentary system used around the world. It's been the seat of government since 1512, though the current structure only dates to 1834. It feels wrong moving parliament wholesale to another location permanently. I say kick em out and fix it up in one go. Perhaps look at some parliamentary restructure and some new satellite sites, perhaps in the regions, to help elevate the strain on the old building.

 

Or, put a UK parliament in Manchester and make the palace home to a smaller English parliament.

[davyboi]

I saw a news article I think on the BBC showing the basement area and how they were trying to trace thousands of cables that nobody knew what they did or where they went that alone was going to take probably years.

 

Surely with the age and cost of the building it is simply no longer fit for purpose. I know some will argue that parliament has been there for hundreds or years and that a new location would be wrong and go against traditions, but you've got to draw the line somewhere between tradition and what is now relevant and when its time to move on (do we really still need all of the theatrics of slamming the door in the "black Rods" face then have him bang on the door three times and all that carry on?) this could be a fantastic opportunity to totally modernise politics with a new state of the art building full of modern technologies. Maybe then you will actually get more young people engaged in politics.

 

The old building could be re-purposed into a museum showing the history of politics and be a world wide tourist attraction, the entrance fees would at least then contribute to the future upkeep of the building.

 

On the other hand they could just rent a couple of units down on an industrial estate and stick them in there!

[JRowley]

This is the news article - Parliament repair bill 'could top £3bn' - BBC News

 

The video features the part @davyboi is talking about, at around the 2:30 mark.

[Crumpet]

After seeing ISIS destroying national monuments that disagree with their ideology in Iraq, i'd definatly say keep it. It's a part of our heritage.

[rich_tech]

why London why does everything always have to be London. In these times of austerity make them take their share and send them to I don't know dot rhe sake of argument Milton keenes and im sure a purpose built replacement would be far more sensible than keep adapting the old existing place (though if they want to knock that down with mps inside I can live with that lol

 

I said London on the pure basis that it is where the majority of government departments are based, there are plenty of other places around London, but I think that moving it away would mean transport costs between these places ill wager so its a bit of a non-saver there unless we moved everything on block which is unlikely as some departments are massive.

[tmcd35]

I saw a news article I think on the BBC showing the basement area and how they were trying to trace thousands of cables that nobody knew what they did or where they went that alone was going to take probably years.

!

 

I can totally relate to this. Although we have roof cavities instead of basements...

[speckytecky]

Yes, high time for a reality check and total revision of he way Parliament works. Unelected Upper House - what a farce! Far, far too many MP's. Far too much time spent swannying around at tax payers expenses and that includes Party Conferences. Those should be held in their holiday time. It's a total disgrace when you view the Parliament channel and see important debates in the house with only a handful attending. Turn the place into a museum as said earlier. Fair enough it's going to need somewhere else to house the Parliament but haven't HSBC got itchy feet and are looking to move their HQ out of Cannary Wharf? Perfect!

[LeMarchand]

Hollywood has solved the problem for us.