The extra cost of the Bristol Beacon is a ‘painful reality’, but Bristol ‘can afford it’, because the alternatives would cost even more, Mayor Marvin Rees has said. The Mayor of Bristol defended the project today after it was revealed the costs of completing the job to refurbish and essentially rebuild the old Colston Hall into the Bristol Beacon had gone up again, from £107 million to almost £132 million.
And the man in charge of the project said the extra costs could not be pinned down to any one thing in particular, just the sheer scale of the project and the dire state of the fabric of the building they discovered in the first couple of years of the project. And that, along with delays caused by Covid and the spiralling costs of materials and labour in the construction industry, meant to finish the job this year would cost an extra £25 million.
A report to Bristol City Council’s cabinet outlined the scale of the issue - and said paying the extra costs demanded by construction firm Willmott Dixon was the cheapest option. The project has already gone up from an initial £45m when work first began, to £107m, and now up to £132m to get the job done.
