Such grand projects have a habit of costing more and taking longer than originally promised.
At the same time, new potential blockbuster drugs are taking longer to reach the market.
The City of Lincoln Council said a chemical-clean of the water system was taking longer than expected.
Are men taking longer to find their perfect mate - or has austerity just made them more focused and career-minded?
Hundreds of people are working 24-7 to secure it, but salvage efforts are taking longer than expected.
Mr Osborne said it was taking longer, but he was "slowly but surely" fixing the country's economic problems.
It will take longer and cost more, even after you account for it taking longer and costing more.
Plastic circuitry promises as large a market as light-emitting polymers, but the technology is taking longer to commercialise.
More than 420 people are working 24-7 to secure it, but salvage efforts are taking longer than expected.
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Surveys show nearly a third of consumers will abandon a web page taking longer than five seconds to load.
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The agency admits there are problems but argues cases are taking longer because they are working with new laws.
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But bankers who deal with the wealthy emirate say it is taking longer to get deals done of late.
Others try to limit the expectations of their boss or family by taking longer to reply, or switching off.
On Sunday, Mr Osborne admitted cutting the deficit was "taking longer" than planned.
Mr Osborne admitted it was taking longer than expected but insisted "we are, slowly but surely, fixing our country's economic problems".
"Having been through this I wouldn't say it's taking longer than expected, but it's been difficult, " Johnson said of talks with labor.
It is clearly taking longer to recover from the financial crisis than one would have hoped, but we have made real progress.
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Investors were worried that margins remained under pressure, and that the European pallet business was taking longer than expected to turn around.
Regulators are becoming riskaverse, so approvals for new drugs are taking longer.
"If I have offended him then I apologise and I apologise if it is taking longer than normal, " said the London-based property developer.
"The problem we have had is that project is taking longer and costing more to develop than comparable projects in Scotland, " he said.
Ian Marchant, chief executive of SSE, says proposed projects in Wales are taking longer and costing more than in other parts of the UK, notably Scotland.
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Emerging companies are taking longer to come public, secondary venture capital markets are increasing dramatically and late-stage private equity options are vast in number.
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"We are continuing to seek experienced cancer nurses with specialist training however, this process is regrettably taking longer than we had hoped, " he said.
Election officials say the fraud wasn't bad enough to undermine the legitimacy of the vote, but the ballot count is taking longer than expected.
He told party members that "the economy is healing" but added that "healing is taking longer than we hoped, because the damage was greater than we feared".
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So, Mr Cameron used his speech to admit that the job of tackling the deficit had proved tougher and was taking longer than he'd expected.
Both species were taking longer to rehabilitate and rehome than a year ago, which means their average cost of stay was also rising, the RSPCA said.
Midfielder Jamie Vermiglio could be out for the rest of the season after X-rays revealed his broken toe was taking longer to heal than was hoped.
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