£20,000 is utterly inadequate. Topsoil is around £100 a cubic metre, so covering the 2,000 square metres with 20cm of the stuff alone would cost that on its own Then there is turf on top of that, and the machinery to spread it all as well as paths and plantings. It is likely, too that drainage will be needed. Nor does stuff like topsoil fall much in price with quantity, sadly.
Block paving for paths will cost you around £75 to £100 per square metre. A shingle path or asphalt about half that.
I have no idea who this superman is who can do the whole thing in around 2,000 hours (after the odd tea and lunch break) but it sure isn't me, and I doubt it's you either.
£50 an hour isn't particularly generous these days either. If you are employing someone you have to make an allowance for holidays, pay national insurance, insurance and a pension contribution, accept that there will be sick pay occasionally etc. £50 is about right I'd say, especially if you expect the poor bugger to do all this on his own in two months!
Yes, you COULD employ someone unofficially, and bung him a weekly brown envelope with no tax, but do you really want the council to work that way? It is likely that the result would be inferior too. Also, what is to stop the council official creaming off a percentage of the chaps wages...
It is very easy to sit at home, conclude that these prices are outrageous, and suggest how it could be done more cheaply, but these schemes rarely include much detail and gloss over any clear idea of what is actually involved.
A square metre an hour for all stages isn't hard work, I move over a tonne of soil/rubble 20 feet in an hour with ease, I'm hardly superman, if I was paid to do that I would consider £20 an hour generous, The £50 an hour was including hiring vibration plates, rotavators and the like on some occasions.
I'm sure there would be no shortage of occasional unskilled help at £15/hr (about twice minimum wage) on a contract basis to do some humping and dumping.
Its not a lawn or bowling green, its a dog toilet at best, no need for top soil or turf, robust grass seed will do, dig the earth out and bury the rubble.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Well, the cost seems to well within reason to me and complies with estimates I've seen elsewhere. If you can do it a lot cheaper and make a profit, there is nothing to stop you submitting a tender to the council and winning the contract.
Be aware that the contract may well be a lot more detailed than you seem to think appropriate though, and may specify proper disposal of rubble, depth of topsoil, drainage, and details of the path construction etc. all of which may come as something of an unpleasant surprise.
https://democracy.wirral.gov.uk/doc...0GT%20Exec%20Summary%20ISUS%20Report.pdf This just about sums up the cost to us for the council to do anything.They employ a company to employ and oversee another company to give away £500 and advice. The advice is give us the ££ to print business cards and flyers for the new venture. It cost £200,220 X14 not including vat the overseer and council to give £500 X 14 of our money away. The same clowns are telling us they need more money. X14 is only the known, as they WBC cannot access the systems used to record the data.
Well, the cost seems to well within reason to me and complies with estimates I've seen elsewhere. If you can do it a lot cheaper and make a profit, there is nothing to stop you submitting a tender to the council and winning the contract.
Be aware that the contract may well be a lot more detailed than you seem to think appropriate though, and may specify proper disposal of rubble, depth of topsoil, drainage, and details of the path construction etc. all of which may come as something of an unpleasant surprise.
That's partly my point, the Council has probably way over-spec'd the dog toilet. Why didn't they put the job out to tender without specification and see what could be done with what money, there might have been a chance of something useful cropping up. It could even have been a project for a school, college, community team, youth club or similar. Maybe the community service people might have taken it on.
My complaint is £106,000 being spent on a glorified dog toilet, that sort of money could bring two semi-derelict houses back into use.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
