Holyrood to blow £600k on designs for new entrance

SCOTTISH Parliament bosses are to spend almost £600,000 on drawing up plans for a new high-security entrance which may never be built.

Edinburgh architects firm Lee Boyd Ltd has been awarded the contract to design the proposed new security screening facility, which would be added on to the front of the building facing the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Officials, however, admitted the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB), which oversees the building, would only decide whether to go ahead with the extension once it had seen the designs and heard how much the project would cost, which is expected to happen towards the end of next year.

Independent Lothians MSP Margo MacDonald said: "This is absolutely ridiculous. There is no guarantee the corporate body will act on the designs they get back. There should not be another penny spent on it."

The cost of the new security screening facility has been estimated at around 5 million.

It is the latest controversial and costly measure recommended to the parliament by security advisers including MI5.

A parliamentary answer last summer revealed the parliament had spent a total of 2,314,000 on new security measures over the past three years.

The bill includes more than 1m for bollards and concrete benches designed to block the path of an explosives-laden vehicle; 412,000 for turnstiles; 232,000 for a "triangular roundabout" and chicane outside the car park; 233,000 for traffic lights and security barriers at the car park; 53,000 for gates and fences; and 276,000 for "project management".

The new security entrance would mean members of the public waiting to go through airport-style scanners as they arrive at the parliament would no longer be queuing inside the main structure of the building.

A parliament spokesman said the cost of that contract was 595,000 over the next three years and nine months.

"The contract is to produce a design which once taken forward to the planning application stage will enable us to establish how much it would cost to construct an external facility.

"This is as far as the parliament's corporate body has agreed to proceed at this stage. It will be for the SPCB to decide further down the line whether or not it will proceed to the construction of the facility.

"The steps we take are for the greater protection of building users and the public."