In reply to grahamtriggs.

Yes, absolutely agree with this. That's really what I'm trying to get at with the idea of properly treating them as investments with not just costs, but returns, and differential returns based on the timing and scale of investment.

You wouldn't invest in a building program and then lobby the council to stop any new building (or cut funding for new planning approvals) yet when we treat things as though they are a single bottom line we do this over and over again. And when we only provide a very small number of funding options, and in particular nothing that provides the capital for scaling up and proper usability work we continually lose either the value (because the project fails) or control over the investment (because its bought by outside parties).