Could find it funny except UK taxpayers will probably have contributed to this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...sion-ever.html

never mind Jackie - your signature boasts you were 15 years in Marbella, so no doubt you were subsidised as well, by your argument!

Have Top Gear found out about this?

Should link this up with the other thread,
"This is where the UKs money is going",.... (and has already gone down the drain).

Probably enough information about failed projects and fiddling of EU funds in Spain to write half a dozen books,
Though I don't suppose anyone would ever want to read them, ....least of all Stevie.

More mischief-making by the Mail.

Trying to associate an unfinished project with Spain's austerity, when it is, in fact, due to political in-fighting and failure in Madrid. It then tries to over-inflate a 12,000 metre bypass into the "Barcelona Highway", Barcelona being a couple of hundred miles away. The clever photography shot from low down emphasises the road disappearing over the horizon to give the impression of a much larger project.

They should have stuck with El Pais' original story of sheer bloody incompetence. Someone forgot that the road would cross the route of the new unbuilt high-speed train line and hadn't factored in a bridge or a tunnel. You can clearly see it on Google Maps. http://goo.gl/maps/8bVsz

It's difficult to know exactly where EU (Eurozone) decisions come from, Brussels is a kind of vague place full of MEPs, whatever they are, and that's a British word for them. But I can imagine back in the heady days of prosperity those strangely elected members looked at a map of Europe and decided that Spain, one of the largest and least developed countries, and a recent member, could do with updating and there was plenty money in the pot for such updates.

So they shovelled money into the country and the Spanish government, still blinking in the strange new light of democracy, didn't know what to do with it. They started building unneeded roads, airports, and other projects, while the politicians and bankers grew rich.

When the money stopped in 2008, the building stopped and now we have those weird photographs of tumble weed competing with goats to make some use of the follies.

In the absence of sensible comment, those pictures tell a tale.

Of what?

Amazing ! The anti-Europe mob are even confusing a bypass with a city hundreds of miles away...
However if they want something to seethe and splutter over, they should read this - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...subsidies.html
I wonder though if British farmers are quite aware of where this all leads if the UK does leave the EU? No more grants for set-aside, and various other subsidies. Still no doubt the Tesco free market will see them right.

The British government has spent more talking about building a by-pass for Worthing (West Sussex, UK) along the A27 trunk road over many many years including a project in the early 90s when they even bought my house which was blighted by the proposed route. The house stood empty for ages and when it was derelect (the bypass was never built) they sold it for virtually nothing along with many other similar properties.

Bottom line - all governments waste our money.

The worst example I can think of, is the £11 billion down the drain when the NHS IT project was cancelled. There again, over £20 billion is spent every year on housing benefits, but at least that subsidises landlords...

there are 2 prongs to this fork
one is that the EU provides say 60% of the funding, leaving the govt to find the rest. So the work starts with the EU money but the govt finds it cannot come up with it's share - so work stops.

the other is that no govt project has come in ON TIME ON BUDGET. There are always the "little" extras that have to be taken care of, the miscalculation of 2 depts not talking to each other so one doesn't cost the bridge to cross the AVE of the other.
But there's also the contractor who didn't take into account the hardness of the rock when drilling out a tunnel and had to come back for more money - that wasn't available.

No I am wrong on that - IIRC a Tory govt (but will accept correction) decided to "rent" the M1 to a contractor when it required resurfacing. As the profit was greater for a fast finish they worked 24/7 including all night and got the job done before time on budget and made more profit.

I think they've been cancelling the NHS IT system every year for the last 30 years.

Why can't they take the Spanish system, hand it over to me and a couple of Polish programmers, take out all the Spanish words, slip in some new English ones, make good, bosh, bosh, bosh - £2 Billion. OK to start Monday, Squire ?

Too many vested interests and backhanders I suspect.
You wouldn't even need to employ overseas programmers - just stop handing over wads of cash to the likes of Crapita and Accentfail, and get some experienced Brit Analyst-Programmers to design, develop and implement the system. Many people believe that because the NHS treats millions of people every year, that the IT system should be unwieldly and hard to implement. Not so - anyone who's worked in Utilities systems (as I have) will know ways to make updating and querying of databases containing millions of records, to be fairly straight forward. as, no doubt the Spanish programmers of their system can tell us.

and you think you will get the job when a friend of a minister/cabinet member will do it for £3.5 billion.


mind you a fully expenses paid trip to Singapore to see how they do it out there at the same time as the F1 where you will be in someone's box........
will help to sell it.

still haven't worked out how Prescott managed to get so many foreign visits in at the same time as he was meeting his diving buddies. would have thought diving was the last thing he would be doing with all that weight on him

sounds fine Stevie, but you are probably talking about commercially available software, whereas those 2 companies only exist because they sell their own non-compatible bespoke software. There is no competition and they hold everyone to ransom.

Yes there are failed projects in all countries. The new UK high speed train will be totally useless benefit when costs are calculated. However, most countries did not get huge sums of money from the EU to waste! That road is just the tip of the iceburg, there are some in Andalucía too. Add all the others, Airports, exhibition centres, hospitals built but can't afford to open...all with EU money.