Paul Stallan of Stallan-brand made the comments after the Glasgow School of Art said it cannot afford to rebuild Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s fire-ravaged building by itself, The Herald reports. 

The school’s board of governors had said it would need financial support from others to completely reinstate the building, after the cost of a complete rebuild was put at roughly £265 million. 

The GSA’S board has instead agreed to the short-term option of removing the scaffolding that covered the building since the second fire during 2018, to replace it with an internal support system as well as steelwork.

But Stallan believes it would be a “profound irony” if the government did not finance the reconstruction of the building, considering the extent of taxpayers’ cash going towards privately-financed projects.

Known for his work on the 2014 Commonwealth Games Village and the Falkirk Wheel, Stallan cited a 2020 Audit Scotland report on privately financed infrastructure. 

The auditors found that the Scottish public sector is contracted to pay £40.1 billion in annual payments between 1998-99 and 2047-48 under current Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) and hub privately financed contracts – which is more than fourfold the capital value of the assets developed.

According to the report, £13.1bn had already been made for 136 projects since 1998-99, and a further £27bn is scheduled to be paid by 2047-48, against a total asset value under £9bn.

Stallan defined these payments as “a long-term transfer of public revenue to private finance interests, restricting the money available for healthcare, education, culture and existing assets”. 

He added this is “not an argument against investment in schools, hospitals or transport, but against financing them through arrangements that extract long-term premiums from public revenue”.