China’s example

HUNAN province in China is following in the footsteps of the Scottish Parliamentarians in spending £400 million on a prestige building.

While our building was the parliament at the end of the Royal Mile, theirs will be the tallest building in the world. Called Sky City One it will house 174,000 people, plus schools, offices, shops and hotels, which makes it about £6,000 for a family home

It will be built by modular mass production methods, which have been available for decades but tend to run foul of planning permission rules here. Construction is due to start in November 2012 and be completed in January 2013. Presumably it will not be the last self-contained city built.

Scotland’s politicians have given us the world’s most expensive tram line (twice the cost of Sky City) and the world’s second most expensive bridge (six times Sky City and eight times the inflation-adjusted cost of the previous bridge). They all boast of a commitment to “affordable housing”. Now Glasgow’s Red Road flats are being demolished, it will be interesting to see if they continue to produce the world’s most expensive version of that too.

NEIL CRAIG

Woodlands Rd. Glasgow