[reeve]

But not as emblematic as the fact that the handling charge on donations is almost 10%.

Have I understood this right... the platform being used to receive donations takes a 10% cut of those donations? I had a quick look but couldn't see that.  Have I misunderstood?

[stone]

I clicked to make a donation, the payment details then said the amount charged would be almost 10% more to account for the handling charge of the platform.
PS, I just checked the email:
Donation amount: £50
Donor Fee Cover Amount: £4.28
Gift Aid amount: £12.50
Payment Type: Single Credit/ Debit Cards
Charity Name: Peak District National Park Foundation

[Teaboy]

Does anyone know how they got the stands down and into place when the existing bridge was built?

[reeve]

I clicked to make a donation, the payment details then said the amount charged would be almost 10% more to account for the handling charge of the platform.
PS, I just checked the email:
Donation amount: £50
Donor Fee Cover Amount: £4.28
Gift Aid amount: £12.50
Payment Type: Single Credit/ Debit Cards
Charity Name: Peak District National Park Foundation

Thanks Stone. I know as much about raising funds as I do about building bridges, but the idea that I've got to pay a middleman ~10% to be able to donate is quite off-putting for me. That doesn't happen with any charities I donate to, for example. Should it really cost Shark £20k to donate enough to cover the full amount?!

Obviously I'm grateful to those who have already donated despite this!

[tomtom]

This discussion bought to mind the footbridge shenanigans here:

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/28/norfolk-marsh-bridge-national-trust

[Tony]

This discussion bought to mind the footbridge shenanigans here:

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/28/norfolk-marsh-bridge-national-trust

Except that it is PDNPA commissioning a new bridge…. (and about every other aspect)

[Tony]

I know as much about raising funds as I do about building bridges, but the idea that I've got to pay a middleman ~10% to be able to donate is quite off-putting for me. That doesn't happen with any charities I donate to, for example. Should it really cost Shark £20k to donate enough to cover the full amount?!

Obviously I'm grateful to those who have already donated despite this!

Why don’t you write to PDNP Foundation offering to do their accounting for free?

The collection of Gift Aid and payment processing and records keeping for all this will cost all charities. In this case it’s 7%. Standard payment processing charges are around 2%, Gift Aid administration is a bit more and record keeping is a moveable feast.

Not donating because you disagree that a charity doesn’t have accountants and payment processors working for them for free is a cop out.

[tk421a]

Stone and others, if you're confident that you know more about designing and building bridges than people who design and build bridges for a living, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from starting your own engineering firm, outbidding the competition, and becoming phenomenally successful.
That is, unless you don't actually know more about designing and building bridges than people who design and build bridges for a living 

I don't work in civils, but I did have to manage an access bridge reinstatement project to a wind turbine that's a bit offshore. I'm surprised it can't be done a bit cheaper than £180k. We had excavators in for a week or two, fixing of sheet piles, backloading and compacting the ground, full site team with welfare cabins etc. and, from memory (I'm and engineer, not a bean counter) it was in that ballpark.

But as Will says, there are people on here that actually do it for a living so I'm inclined to go with them.... 

Could we crowd-source the engineering? ;-)  I'm sure there are enough climbers that are project managers, civil engineers,  planners that it could be cobbled together. Just need Shark to fund the material costs and cranes. 

Is 20 metres too big for a Gluelam bridge? a 30' (10m) one seems to be around €18k delivered, so say $50k, or £40k.

Deflection increases with L^4. Stiffness increases with h^3 so the beam depth would have to go up by 2.5x for a 2x span. So doesn't seem unreasonable that a bridge 2x the span would be 5x the cost. I've not worked as an engineer so don't trust this.

[joel182]

I know as much about raising funds as I do about building bridges, but the idea that I've got to pay a middleman ~10% to be able to donate is quite off-putting for me. That doesn't happen with any charities I donate to, for example. Should it really cost Shark £20k to donate enough to cover the full amount?!

Obviously I'm grateful to those who have already donated despite this!

Why don’t you write to PDNP Foundation offering to do their accounting for free?

The collection of Gift Aid and payment processing and records keeping for all this will cost all charities. In this case it’s 7%. Standard payment processing charges are around 2%, Gift Aid administration is a bit more and record keeping is a moveable feast.

Not donating because you disagree that a charity doesn’t have accountants and payment processors working for them for free is a cop out.

Come on, it's really not unreasonable to complain about a 10% fee here. £20k would cover the salary for a juniour Deloitte accountant to work on this full time for 6 months!

[Tony]

it's really not unreasonable to complain about a 10% fee here.

Except that, as so highlighted, it’s not 10%, it’s 7% and that includes a card processing fee of ~2%. So it’s about 5%.

If you want to investigate how much various charities spend on their fundraising and operational costs why don’t you look up their reports on the Charity Commission’s website.

It’s an amusing situation in that this charity being transparent about its costs is causing such a fuss.

This adds to my impression that climbers seem particularly unaware of how much stuff costs (including staff time) and really are tight.

Nice one to those that continue to give to the PDNP Foundation's fundraiser for this at: https://shorturl.at/cesz8

[Teaboy]

If you want to investigate how much various charities spend on their fundraising and operational costs why don’t you look up their reports on the Charity Commission’s website.

There’s a difference between fundraising costs and the transactional costs we’re talking about here. 5% on top of the ~2% usually payment processing fee is a lot.  It’s more than justgiving charge and more than things like Etsy, shopify etc.
It is perfectly possible to question the value of things without being tight, it’s also possible that things can be the market rate and still be a rip off.
Anyway, next time your looking for some work that needs doing hit me up and and I’ll give you a quote!

[Tony]

It is perfectly possible to question the value of things without being tight, it’s also possible that things can be the market rate and still be a rip off.

Etsy is comparable and you can’t claim GiftAid, Shopify, again, no gift aid. JustGiving is cheaper, but that is not the platform this charity has chosen.

Remember this is not your cost (so you can’t be ripped off): you are donating. (although you can take the hit on the charity’s behalf).

If you want cost-effective donation then I would suggest investing in malaria prevention. But that’s another matter…

[stone]

JustGiving is cheaper, but that is not the platform this charity has chosen.
Remember this is not your cost (so you can’t be ripped off): you are donating. (although you can take the hit on the charity’s behalf).

Well, that's the point. PDNP didn't choose the best value system and so is wasting our money, which is what we are complaining about.
https://help.justgiving.com/hc/en-us/articles/200670421-How-can-I-donate-and-what-fee-do-you-take

[Tony]

Well, that's the point. PDNP didn't choose the best value system and so is wasting our money

No Stone. You donated what you saw fit.

They may be wasting their own money but they may have chosen the platform on other grounds / for other functionality. However, from the moment you donated (nice one, by the way) it was their money.

Apart from big charities, most don’t have lots of full time specialists for making optimal decisions across all areas in which they operate at all times. But, as I wrote above, there may have been other (reasonable) reasons for choosing that platform - you could ask them?

That they received 93% of the money that resulted from your donation is considerably better than “gaining” 100%  from someone donating nothing.

Look at their Charity Commission reports if you want to investigate their overall charitable activity vs operational costs.

Once again, I’d encourage any potential user of this crossing to consider supporting the cost of a new bridge by donating via the PDNP Foundation's fundraiser for this at: https://shorturl.at/cesz8

[remus]

If anyone fancies a little light reading there's an overview of the proposed works available here https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/system/download/f/4c456962555a645a32753732666c65384b4263644a413d3d

You can also view the planning application here https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/10231299 and the bid that went out for tender here https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2023/W43/809500781

Stone, you'll be interested to know they're proposing a GRP bridge like the ones you were looking at!

ed: the structural report on the condition of the current bridge is available via the planning application here https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/system/download/f/6469616b67746b373233396c612f42417a6841594e413d3d

[stone]

Thanks Remus, I'll check those out.

I was just this minute chatting on zoom about this with my sister who works for Transport for Scotland. She said £200k for a footbridge didn't surprise her at all.

[Fiend]

Some heated debate here, but just to check, we are all agreed that this is the best start to proceedings:

a bunch of climbers turning up at midnight with chainsaws and waders

 

[Paul B]

If anyone fancies a little light reading there's an overview of the proposed works available here https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/system/download/f/4c456962555a645a32753732666c65384b4263644a413d3d

You can also view the planning application here https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/10231299 and the bid that went out for tender here https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2023/W43/809500781

Stone, you'll be interested to know they're proposing a GRP bridge like the ones you were looking at!

ed: the structural report on the condition of the current bridge is available via the planning application here https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/system/download/f/6469616b67746b373233396c612f42417a6841594e413d3d

Thanks Remus, that's really useful.

Spidermonkey, Stone - are you going to have a read of that and perhaps row back on your stance/cynicism? Essentially, the arrangement was suitable and shock horror, considering sectional loss (once the protection system has failed) means the structural capacity of the bridge is now less than designed (N.B. when you design stuff like this it needs to perform as designed on the last day of its life as it did on day one).

If people on this thread knew WTF they were talking about they'd realise that statement pretty much disproves over-design! If you want to argue 5kPa isn't ever going to happen then just ensure that nobody organises a group walk / run or whatever over the bridge, for the next 60 years without fail. The same people bleating on about over-design would no doubt be the first ones blaming engineers whenever a particularly windy day caused some form of failure (ULS failure) or they went into their local bank (do people still have these?) and noticed the ceiling was deflecting to an amount that made them uncomfortable (SLS failure).

TLDR: Bridge in asset life expired as a result of it not being maintained to extend that life shocker.

I can comment more on the issues in civil engineering in terms of contracts and cost (and sunk cost) but if you think the industry works on huge margins you're vastly mistaken. Yes, it can be efficient. Yes, there's a lot of paperwork and process but that stuff has been developed for a reason, usually something bad having happened.

In terms of liability etc. I'm quite glad I live in a society where my life has a value that means others try and protect it; the DfT put a number on each of our lives BTW (after one of the rail disasters) and that was £1.7 million in 2017 (so around £2.2M today). This is used in risk based asset management all the time to determine proportionality of works vs. risk.

[spidermonkey09]

I've always been very clear that I don't know what I'm talking about and I found it interesting reading through those docs. It sounds like its in the ballpark, so fair dos. I may be old before my time but there is a slight regret that there is no way of doing things like this any cheaper, ie without the reams of paperwork, surveys, hoops to jump through etc. I have no idea what the original cost but I bet it wasn't much and its lasted 30 years according that last doc without any issues until now. Thats just me though, and thats an opinion born of frustration with planning systems. Others hold different views and thats fine. But as I've said, the bottom line is its good something is being done and if the FIPL are happy to fund the majority of it then great.

In terms of cynicism, I suppose the counter question is are you really arguing that overengineering isnt a thing? Obviously sometimes it may be prudent, but surely sometimes it isn't and amounts to a waste. Im not an engineer and am 100% ignorant, but we were only allowed opinions on stuff we were experts in this discussion forum wouldn't be very populated! I was interested in the last section of that report, 5.4 and 5.5, where they appear to suggest that remediation of the bridge could be an option at a cost of £50-80,000. It wasn't specified, unless I missed it, how long this might extend the lifespan of the bridge. Obviously if this only bought the bridge 10 years it wouldn't be worth it. In 5.5, they estimate the budget costs of the new bridge to be £80-120,000, quite a lot less than the £180k now quoted, which might grow further. So ultimately, even reading the structural assessment survey, I don't think its unreasonable to have queries, even as a lay person, about how the cost was arrived at, and even some cycnicism about whether remediation might have been better than replacement, especially given that that survey suggests that the bridge abutments/piers were too difficult to inspect and could only be inspected after the initial bridge was removed.

Ultimately though, I'm in favour of something being done, and too often that gets lost in months of talking about doing something, so I'm ultimately happy that there is a proposal to replace out there which sounds like it has a good chance of getting funded. Its been reasonably efficient given them bridge was first closed a few years ago I think.

[Paul B]

I can't answer the above post easily from a phone but I can do later when I'm at a keyboard.

Sounds like the whole structure has been condemned by civil engineers, which I might cynically suggest is unsurprising 

But seriously I get where Tony S is coming from, it is good there is action being taken to replace it.

The fact is, this pushed my buttons as someone that's been in this position before. I guess I agree (for very different reasons) in that it's not unsurprising based on my TL;Dr above!

[spidermonkey09]

That was meant as light hearted pisstake of the stereotype of engineers as incredibly risk averse people for whom nothing is ever safe enough. No different to the frequent pisstakes of eg builders as teeth sucking "thats gonna cost you" merchants, mains dealer mechanics as "string along for months fixing the wrong things until they stumble upon the right thing", or academics as ivory tower dwelling pontificators who know nothing of the real world. 

[seankenny]

This is UKB’s very own “£350m on the side of a bus” moment. Working out what counts as “a lot” in the context of public spending is just really hard for most people. My personal preference is for thinking in terms of cost per capita, cost per household or cost per taxpayer. There are roughly 30m income tax payers in the U.K. so any national level government spending under £30m is change lost in the sofa/rounding error territory.

Obviously this is complicated by a small local project whose impact is less clear. How many potential users of a bridge in the Peak are there? And over how long a timescale?

I feel this kind of thread is really an artefact of living in a very low investment country. We don’t invest much, publicly or privately, so it all looks horribly expensive. Ultimately a bit depressing.

[spidermonkey09]

I feel this kind of thread is really an artefact of living in a very low investment country. We don’t invest much, publicly or privately, so it all looks horribly expensive. Ultimately a bit depressing.

Definitely!

[stone]

My guess is that perhaps 50 people a day (averaged over a year) used that bridge and perhaps there are 200 people who cross it >50x per year. So £200k is pricy per person. I really like the walk that includes that bridge but I'd baulk at paying say £500 towards it. As a frequent user, I ought to be comfortable paying that sort of amount if it were to be paid for by the users. So I don't think shock at the £200k is misplaced.

Evidently bridges are extremely expensive, even when so small.

There are a bunch of footbridges all along that river. It would really start to become a pain if more of them got inspected and condemned in that way. 

[seankenny]

But it’s a project of the Peak District National Park, right? Which has 13m annual visitors and effectively each one of those is a consumer of “national park services” even if they don’t use each and every individual part of that service.

I guess it’s alway possible to pick numbers to reinforce one’s original view rather than look at it in context.