Costing of fountain

Thank you for your letter of 12 January to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, asking for a complete breakdown of the costs which have been incurred in the construction and on-going maintenance of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park.
We are unable to release the complete breakdown of all the construction costs, as the final account has not yet been agreed. The estimated cost of construction is £3.6 million.
In addition, since the Memorial opened in July 2004, £5,245 has been spent on fencing and £3,490 on signs. It is anticipated that the improvement works which are being carried out between January and May 2005 will cost in excess of £200,000.
The estimated annual maintenance costs are £143,000 in the first year and an average of £118,000 in future years and these figures have been released to the public. Actual maintenance costs incurred to date are £60,743. These include cleaning, removal of leaves and maintenance of the fountain’s mechanical systems between July 2004 and December 2004.
You also asked about staffing costs. It is not possible to provide information about staffing costs relating to the whole construction period or period since the Memorial opened. This is because various Royal Parks staff have been involved in dealing with the Memorial over this period but no staff worked exclusively on the Memorial and no records are kept of how much time staff spent on dealing with the Memorial. However, we are able to inform you that £45,405 was been spent on supervisors for the Memorial between July and December 2004 and we expect the costs of supervisors over 2005 to be at least £100,000
The embarrassing problems and spiralling costs that plagued the memorial fountain to Diana, Princess of Wales, have been blamed on poor management.
MPs attacked the soaring costs of the project in Hyde Park, London, which went more than £2m over budget and costs £250,000 a year to maintain.
Members of the Commons Public Accounts Committee criticised the Department for Culture, Media and Sport yesterday after costs rose from £3m to £5.2m and said that the annual estimated cost of maintenance had doubled.
They warned that cash to run the fountain was being siphoned away from other parks after the Royal Parks Agency was left to manage the memorial, and demanded that lessons be learned for the proposals to design a memorial to the Queen Mother.