MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands discusses capital projects investments over the next five years

Education a priority - the Infant Junior School/CE above

Falkland Islands members of the Legislative Assembly made an open, public presentation, with feedback, to explain how approximately £61.1 million in available government funds might be divided between capital projects over the next five years.

 An estimated 70 members of the public attended the event on the Capital plan Consultation (2014-18), which was held in order to generate a discussion on “relative priorities,” said MLA Summers who gave the presentation, supported by his colleagues.

“The initial outline groupings has been decided by MLAs and a 20-year National Infrastructure Plan is to be completed later in the year”, added MLA Summers who emphasized that all figures were illustrative and no detailed costing work has been done.

He also noted that the list of priorities amounts did not come anywhere close to the amounts requested by the actual departments, which amounted to over £117 million.

MLA Michael Poole told Penguin News the meeting was helpful: “and we were glad to see such a wide range of people attend. I think some may have been disappointed that we did not present a final vision for capital development, but we are just not there yet.
”It was good to get a sense of what people see as the priorities and we encourage everyone to keep talking to us on the subject.”

The Falklands' National Infrastructure Plan (NIP) is due to be completed towards the end of this year.

“However we cannot stand still in the meantime and are looking to make budget allocations for 2014/15 right now” explained MLA Poole, “so we need to decide where we want to go in some areas.

The NIP is a 20-year plan; we are currently focused on this Government and what we want to achieve within the funds we have available.”

He concluded: “We encourage and value people’s views on this important issue. The feedback certainly changed my mind in a couple of areas, as I know it did others too.”

Priorities and sub-totals

The Priority 1 projects were FIPASS, the prison (extension only) an elderly care home, education requirements, the Fire Station and the Power Station (additional capacity) however it was explained that they were not in order of importance. The sub total of the Number 1 priorities was £21,500,000.

Another priority project was housing: housing infrastructure, Government housing, Stanley utilities and maintenance (sub-total £12,650,000).

Roads projects comprised Camp roads, the MPA road (a ‘low estimate’ of £36,000,000) Stanley roads, and Ross Road with a sub total of £45,950,000.

Development projects were the EDS/RDS/TDS, air terminal redevelopment, industrial site development and waste management, with a sub total of £9,725,000. Government Offices projects which included new offices and hospital maintenance came to £5,822,000 and Community Projects (sports and community facilities and a Vulnerable Persons Strategy) sub totaled £1,650,000.

The cost of the port projects including roads/services would total £15,000,000 and plant and vehicles projects (including plant for PWD, vehicles and hospital equipment) would sub-total £5,565,000.

With £61,000,000 available to spend and priority projects totaling £117,862,000 MLAs suggested the only way this would come close to working out was by not including the MPA Road and the port.

MLAs emphasized that it was still anticipated that the private sector would fund the new port and it had never been the intention that the public sector would do so.

The meeting generated considerable discussion with particular attention paid to the Number 1 priorities although most other projects also drew questions. (Penguin News)