The Infrastructure Podcast: Episode 65

Guest:  Dale Evans, Chair of the Project 13 Strategy Group and partner at Allora Infrastructure

The Project 13 community

In today’s podcast we talk about fixing the broken model for delivering major infrastructure projects in the UK. 

Why do we need to fix this model?

Well, as we know, Britain needs high performing infrastructure if we are to improve the productivity of our economy and boost living standards for communities.

“Yet the model we use to deliver and operate much of this infrastructure is broken. 

“Too often it produces assets and networks that are expensive, perform poorly and fail to exploit the advances in technology that are transforming other industries. 

Too often the supply chain that delivers our infrastructure seems locked into a cycle of low margins, low investment and dysfunctional relationships.”

Not my word but those of the 2017 Infrastructure Client Group report “From Transactions to Enterprises” which unpacked the challenge.

And recent project outcomes bear this out if we consider projects such as Crossrail, Jubilee Line Extension, West Coast Mainline upgrade, Hinkley Point C, HS2 – the list goes on. And there are of course many more examples of smaller infrastructure projects failing to deliver. 

So back in 2017, following this ICG report, Project 13 was born to tackle the problem - an industry-led response to delivery models that fail not just clients and their suppliers, but also the operators and users of our infrastructure systems and networks.

Seven years on and the project is going from strength to strength, with support from the World Economic Forum and the Institution of Civil Engineers plus a rake of influential businesses, people and projects.

So to find out a bit more, my guest today is Dale Evans, Chair of the Project 13 Strategy Group and partner at Allora Infrastructure. Dale has been intimately involved in the evolution of Project 13 from his time chairing the ICG and while driving industry change as he led the influential @onealliance for Anglian Water.

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