Original by Caleb Spencer, Cambrian News - http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/article.cfm?id=112110&headline=School%20build%20will%20have%20cost%20taxpayers%20%C2%A359m§ionIs=news&searchyear=2017
The construction of Ysgol Penweddig will end up costing Ceredigion taxpayers almost five times its actual value because it was built using high-interest private finance.
New figures reveal that the Aberystwyth Welsh-medium secondary school, which was constructed in 1999, will eventually cost Ceredigion County Council £58.8m when the final payment is made in 2030/31, despite the capital value of the school being just £12m.
This is because the council entered into a controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which means that creditors, Barclays Integrated Infrastructure Fund LP, own a 100 per cent equity share in the school until the final payment is made.
The disparity in the value of the school and the money owing is due to high interest costs associated with PFI schemes and the length of the contract — 30 years in the case of Penweddig — meaning taxpayers in Ceredigion will have paid almost five times the value of the school by the time the council pays off the debt.
The figures, which were obtained by the Welsh Conservatives, have been labelled “staggering” by the party’s shadow spokesperson for local government, Janet Finch-Saunders AM, who added that taxpayers were “being fleeced”.
Ysgol Penweddig was the first PFI school in Wales and there were warnings at the time from some councillors that the method was too expensive.