John Barton has seen many ups and downs in construction cycles in his more than 50 years as a quantity surveyor. But rising prices have been constant and costs are now at such an elevated level that he says projects can’t get off the ground. “People might get me to do a budget estimate, but then they just stop after that, they just look at it and think, we can’t afford that,” says Barton, who heads Workshop Quantity Surveyors in Wellington. “Unfortunately, it kills the project.