THE cost of public projects was on the menu at Thursday's Cowdenbeath Rotary Club's meeting.

Guest speaker was former electronics engineer Bob Hamilton who worked on many major projects, .

And he said that it always amazed him how costs seem to escalate on these as progress was made on them.

One of them he was closely involved with was the Queensferry Crossing and he said: "There have been many over the years which have seen costs rise sharply from the original starting price.

"The most well known would be the Edinburgh Tram project which encountered a whole host of issues which started at £375m and ended up running to close to £1b.

"The Skye Bridge started at £25m and it rose to £93m but probably the biggest is the Queensferry Crossing."

The Skye Bridge started at £500m but he said through a number of situations developing at one stage it looked like it could rise to more than £4,220m.

"The final cost which has been published for the project is £1,450m but I feel that this is way under what was spent on this crossing," he added.

Mr Hamilton said that there are many projects which have seen much increased final costs including the Borders Railway and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow and he added: "Also the Scottish Parliament Building itself became a project which ran well beyond the original prize and ended up at over £400m.

"Some motorway projects have also risen significantly in cost as these have progressed".