Hold tight – we’re in a General Election year.
Antony Oliver
11 January 2024
Really interesting times ahead for infrastructure and that’s for sure....
And most likely really challenging times as well as we continue to balance the aspiration of investment to drive growth with the reality of actual delivery.
As my first Infrastructure Podcast guest of 2024 Gill Plimmer explained this week, a General Election year is sure to make the policy commitment that sits behind desired delivery even harder.
“It's hard for the government to keep focused and it is likely that the decision to give the go ahead or not may get derailed and shunted forward to become the problem of the next government,” she said. And as infrastructure correspondent at the Financial Times for more than a few election cycles she should know.
While there is much to do to transform infrastructure delivery, there are three key issues on my mind that really need to get resolved in 2024 if we are to make progress and deliver the promised £805bn infrastructure pipeline of projects destined to transform our energy, transport, water, housing and communications landscape.
1. Sort out the UK’s planning quagmire: we have a process to accelerate Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) but it relies on government updating the National Policy Statements that underpin the process to take account of new policies around net zero and the environment. It is bonkers that, for example, planning delays for grid connection mean we are all paying renewable generators not to generate; that congestion busting public transport projects, new social housing projects or new low carbon electricity generation is being delayed.
2. Create policy clarity and consistency: while the private sectors investment community has plenty of money available to invest in infrastructure – the so-called dry powder – the global competition is huge, not least from the US where policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act are offering attractive subsidies to investors. The UK cannot afford to miss out on this investment.
3. Embrace new technology and modern methods: the industry has been talking about change for decades. Perhaps as we approach the 30th anniversary of the Latham Report it is finally time for the whole supply chain – from client down – to truly “construct the team” and embrace collaboration and the new technologies and techniques that have been threatening to transform the sector ever since.
We know that infrastructure investment has the power to transform the UK and the world in the face of massive societal challenges such as climate change, pollution, the cost of living crisis, housing shortages and social injustice. And it seems that never before has there been such support for investment by the public and private sector.
Now is therefore the moment to accelerate the change that will make it happen. We have to make sure that out politicians, industry leaders and grass roots delivery teams recognised that, for all the reasons to delay, this moment has arrived in 2024.
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