STAGGERINGLY, the only sign of life to emerge from Aberystwyth University’s Old College fiasco is of doors being slammed in the faces of the very people whose millions have been sucked into this now crippled project.

Remember that £53m of public money has already been emptied into this evidently over-ambitious and ineptly managed scheme. That over £30m of that has been in repeated, and unpredicted, major costs revisions.

That, in the end, there have been enough multi-million costs hikes to trigger overtime in a factory making red flags.

Be aware that, despite a crisis point advancing at pace, Aberystwyth University ploughed on, seemingly unfazed, with its elaborate restoration and conversion of this delightfully eccentric seafront pile, despite costs spiralling out of control, reaching more than twice the original £26m quote.

Remember that the bulk of funding has been from public sources - the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Welsh government and European Regional Development Fund, UK government, the Coastal Communities Fund, National Lottery Community Fund. Multi-millions from them, plus more from philanthropic trusts and individuals.

And then try - and fail - to square all that with a refusal by the university to answer a single one of 14 questions I put to it last week about what appears a looming - if not actual - financial disaster.

The refusal is dismissive in tone. Public affairs officer Graeme Neill tells me the university has “nothing more to add” following a statement the previous week. That essentially says little more than that work on the Old College project has been “paused”, and that the university will “evaluate the options for the next phase in light of the new increased cost projections.”

Patrick O'Brien
Patrick O'Brien (Patrick O'Brien)

I had wanted to know, among other things, what the university thought was the root cause of the project coming to grief; whether it had had its own professional advisers and, if they had, whether they ever raised a red flag over repeated and dramatic cost increases?

As costs spiralled apparently out of control, what strategic action, if any, was taken?

Did the university independently verify the details and substance of cost increases?

Why was the university continuing to make a series of detailed and highly positive statements about the scheme’s progress only weeks before announcing that the project had been shut down, suggesting a serious and deep ignorance about the state of affairs financially?

What action, if any, did the university take when the 20 December 2024 contractor-forecast project completion date overran?

Had the university made delivery on budget impossible by introducing significant revision of details of the project?

Without further changes to the brief, what does the university think it would cost to finish the job?

Mr Neill’s only message to the Old College’s long list of multi-million backers: “Further updates will be provided when appropriate.”

You can’t get much snootier than that. It’s like, what’s this got to do with the public? So what if it’s their money we’re talking about? We’re the university, so get lost.

Yet who now is going to be prepared to issue what, in effect, could be a further succession of blank cheques? Who now is going to give credibility to billowing and simplistic claims that the issue is solely one of increasing costs?

Just weeks before the financial shutters finally came clattering down, the university was still churning out cheery ‘progress reports’ on the cultural-educational-touristic extravaganza. Weeks before scores of construction workers on the site suddenly found themselves facing a jobs black hole.

Swansea-based Scott, the Old College main contractor, is equally uncommunicative, telling me: “Our MD is away on annual leave until next Tuesday and is unable to be contacted. We are in ongoing discussions with the university and are unable to comment at this time.”

Scott’s website shows at least six other relevant directors. They’re surely not all on holiday.

The breaking-point for this high-minded but over-elaborate and incautiously managed scheme is likely to have been the university’s rash decision early last year to hugely expand the scope of the Old College project.

Almost unbelievably, against a febrile background of extreme and continuing upward volatility of construction costs globally, and consequent repeated leaps in estimates of cost-to-completion of the Old College work, the university suddenly decided to incorporate a massive neighbouring building into the project.

This was the grade 2-listed Cambria, a stylish hulk opposite the pier which used to be a theological college. Immediately, projected costs for the entire now greatly expanded scheme shot up by tens of millions.

The university had only recently bought the building, and it was announced that the plan now was to incorporate it into the overall Old College plan.

Thus a further substantial layer of financial stress was added to a project already creaking under the strains of a continuing worldwide construction costs explosion over which the university of course had no control. This expansion of the brief was indescribably reckless.

In greatly enlarging the redevelopment exercise more than three years after it began, the university was ignoring potent warning signs which evident since 2022. That was when there had been a spike in commodity prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the three years following those cost pressures worsened. Drawing the Cambria into the scheme at the end of that period was therefore an act of extreme folly.

The university has a lot of explaining to do.