The post you are reporting:
Bern, I run my own business.
Knowledge on how finances work, even for self-employment, is in itself the basis for knowledge on how big-time business works.
Oh, getting a loan! Now let me explain, Jan, and Bern.
I have no personal debt, have a good history of paying my rent, have a good history of full-time employment since my business opened.
Have future contracts for the coming months.
But something tells me that, if I asked for a decent 9 APR loan (9 annual percentage rate), repayable over 3-5 years, someone would look down their nose at me, as these UK cash institutions are known to sit on their cash and only lend to people who have a whopping income, or a house as collateral.
I also know how private firms operating expensive vehicles and employed workers do their finances. Any such firms working on Western Heights to repair old military installations would ask for a small fortune, and probably increase their bill as the work went along.
(They often do this: increase the bill as work goes on, so that it is even double than the original estimation).
It may in fact cost more to repair delicate walls and masonry such as is on WH, than to build the whole lot anew. Yes, it is often cheaper to build a new building than to repair an old one in need of particular attentions.
Of-course CGI would never be able to keep any promise they might give to Paul and DDC on finding firms who would require millions of pounds (15million, 20 million?), to carry out that which Paul hopes for.
If they did, they would have to build 1,000 villas and sell them for £500,000 each, and each villa would need have a large garden too.
I know more about these kinds of finances, promises, and broken promises, than you might like to believe. And once a developer declares insolvency after reaping in a profit, you can sing to the birds for whatever contract they might have previously signed, because by then the Law exonerates them from any further obligations.
If you wished, Jan, and Bern, I could write a book on finances, with many examples of real facts, and you'd be amazed.
Just take one example: whenever the Government makes an arms contract with a British firm, they (we the tax-payers) just about always end up spending double the original agreed price.
The two aircraft carriers presently commissioned by the Government for the Navy already cost about double than what BAE originally promised. One has not even been started, the other is supposed to be mothballed as soon as it enters service.
Unfortunately the Government was advised that to stop the contract would have cost even more money on "compensation" to the constructors, because the contract was signed.
Because the Treasury cannot go into insolvency.
So IF Paul and DDC end up signing a contract to developers, and then discover that it was not as rosy as they had thought, by then it may be too late to undo the damage.
The houses would HAVE to be built, with gardens etc., because DDC cannot go into insolvency, being a Council.
But IF CGI then went into insolvency, they would have no problem being exempt from any further commitments, such as doing up all these miles of facilities on the Heights.
Or they would just do a slap-dash job that could have been done for £500,000 by a brick-layer.
I'm not sure Paul knows what he's getting himself into here with these financial projects.