There's a long way to go yet, and plenty of potential pitfalls ahead, but the announcement of the successful bidder in the project to build the new hospital is a sign that this project is headed in the right direction.

The new hospital is without question the biggest and most complex public works project undertaken in Bermuda in modern times. Not only is a hospital a technologically difficult building in its own right, but the Bermuda Hospitals Board must also keep the existing King Edward VII Memorial Hospital operating as normal through a very long construction period – four years.

Furthermore, the project is the first one of any real scale that is being carried out as a public private partnership (PPP), so a great deal is riding on its success.

This newspaper has been sceptical about the project in the past. PPPs, or PFIs (private finance initiatives) as they are often known, have not had an entirely happy history elsewhere.

Sometimes used as a way to get pubic projects off Government's books, the long maintenance periods often mean that the public ends up paying for the building over and over again, while having less control over the institution.

In other cases, the contractors have been long gone when shortcomings in construction become clear. The fact that the consortium must borrow money on the private market as opposed to a Government borrowing on the public market also means that more will be paid in interest.

Many of these problems have been addressed in the hospital plan. The consortium will be responsible for the building for 30 years. The Government guarantee means that the project will have greater transparency than might otherwise be the case.

The final cost is not yet known, and the concern about borrowing costs remains a real one. Many PFIs in the UK ran into trouble in the credit crisis in 2009.

Another argument in favour of PFIs is that the private sector is quite simply better at delivering these projects than a government.

That has been proven time and time again in Bermuda, although there is a good case to be made that problems with Government projects in Bermuda have almost always arisen due to political interference rather than poor management by the civil service or other Government entities.

And this may be the most important element in favour of this project and this approach.

To date, there has not been a hint or suggestion of political interference and it is no secret that the Bermuda Hospitals Board (with the full support at the outset of the project of the late Health Minister Nelson Bascome) to ensure that the project is run transparently and as independent of politics as possible.

This newspaper does not know why Paget Healthcare Services was chosen over its rival bidders. But to all appearances, the selection process seems to have been objective and methodical. From the start, the bidders were known and the BHB has also been at pains to keep the public informed of progress at every step.

That's the right approach, and so far it seems to be working.