Invest in understanding and upskilling to bring our building costs down

LONDON is the most expensive city in Europe to build a new school in 2023, at $4,000 per square metre, according to Statista. Other large cities around the UK and Europe are in the $2,500 to $3,500 range. A recently-announced project in Singapore is costed at just under $2,500. Clearly St Peter Port is not included in the comparison where the cost of the proposed Les Ozouets Institute seems to be more like $8,000 per square metre. I suspect that few people in Guernsey would be surprised by this, but perhaps we should be embarrassed. With so much construction – schools, hospitals, air terminals, low-cost housing – needed in the Bailiwick, surely, we should first invest in understanding and getting the skills to bring our building costs down to reasonable levels. There are many modern construction methods used in other places that are lower cost, faster, more environmentally friendly and result in better buildings. We need to lift our heads out of the concrete, then perhaps we could afford to do all the things we want to, without GST.