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Comment by Closi | Hacker News Reader

> Firstly, the 'bat shed' (officially SWBMS) is expected to cost £100m. This is neither expensive nor wasteful for a structure nearly 1 kilometre long and "designed to accommodate up to 36 high-speed trains passing through the structure every hour of operation for 120 years, plus frequent conventional rail traffic in addition" as reported by Architects' Journal[1].

It might be good value for a 1km tunnel (or not, I don't know) but I think this argument misses the wood for the trees.

The main point is more "should we be spending £100m on a bat tunnel?"

i.e. What else could £100m of public money buy us, and would it be better than a 1km bat shed?

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> i.e. What else could £100m of public money buy us, and would it be better than a 1km bat shed?

Can you think of anything?

It doesn't seem extraordinarily expensive given the cost of building anything these days, I'd question should the cost of building new things be so expensive, rather than should money be spent on this kind of project, because of all things to spend a large unit of money on, this does seem like a useful one.

How about the NHS?

You keep making the assumption that the building has to be built at all, and that 200 million isn't unreasonable. It does not have to be and its for _bats_.

Ya I was off the mark, didn't read the bit about it actually being a bat thing, seems absurd.

> It doesn't seem extraordinarily expensive

but you don't need to build it at all

you could fund a lot of bat reserves in perpetuity with even 10% of that money

instead of a 1km long concrete box

> you could fund a lot of bat reserves in perpetuity with even 10% of that money

Ya but funding bat reserves has nothing to do with a long concrete box, unless it also literally is a bat reserve. The money for the bats can come from the bat fund, and the concrete box should be able to come from the concrete box fund, if there's not enough for both, figure out which one is more impactful for the people paying the taxes and persuade them to let you save the bats, or let them do it through personal acts of charity.

I hadn't caught the part of the article (thanks alcohol ads) that did describe literally building a 1KM long "bat shed" with no evidence whatsoever that was necessary, (although I'd argue these bureaucracys often tend to get lost in spending the same amount on studies deciding whether something is worth it) The proposition seemed so unrelated and absurd that I thought it had to be hypothetical, and for this I'm deeply sorry lol this is so emblematic of Britain

> Can you think of anything?

Yes, lots! £100m could give a hospital a substantial renovation for example.

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