New National Infrastructure Delivery Plan gets Britain fit for the future

The UK government has published an updated National Infrastructure Delivery Plan (NIDP), which sets out how it will support and improve delivery of key infrastructure projects over the next five years and lays out major policy milestones with details of how prioritisation, performance and delivery of infrastructure will be improved through:

• Identifying and supporting the right projects;
• Improving the infrastructure planning system;
• Reducing the cost of infrastructure; and
• Building a skilled and productive industry.

The plan details government’s plans to support large-scale housing and regeneration, including investment in services such as new local schools, hospitals and prisons. Together with investment by the private sector, the government has committed to invest over £100bn in infrastructure by 2020-2021.

Focusing on improving lives in local communities, the NIDP incorporates the latest version of the National Infrastructure Pipeline, which highlights over £425bn worth of planned investment in over 600 major projects and programmes across the UK. In addition, the plan sets out £58bn of public investment for housing and regeneration, education, health and justice.

Chief Executive of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Tony Meggs, keynote speaker at the forthcoming APM Conference on 21 April, said: “This plan sets out details of infrastructure investment by government and the private sector across all sectors and regions. It describes not only what we are going to build, but also how we will prioritise investment and work with industry to improve delivery.”

Building on excellence

The plan builds on work undertaken in the last Parliament to speed up infrastructure and address high project cost and inefficiency in the project delivery community.

This includes the establishment of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), alongside the Independent National Infrastructure Commission, to improve the ability to make better decisions on future infrastructure; support and improve project delivery; and provide the confidence needed by industry and investors.

It also brings together the expertise of Infrastructure UK and the Major Projects Authority to improve delivery of major government projects and will report back every year on progress that has been made in delivering these plans.

Since 2010 around 3,000 individual infrastructure projects have been completed across the UK, including major new road improvements and local transport schemes, improvements to hundreds of rail stations and more than 20GW of new electricity generating capacity. This is in addition to transformational projects such as Crossrail and the Mersey Gateway Bridge.

Speaking at the Institution of Civil Engineers, Commercial Secretary to the Treasury Lord O’Neill said: “This government is determined, even at a time of global uncertainty, to invest in the long-term projects that will make our economy and our country fit for the future.”

Key report highlights:

• a forward look for £483bn of infrastructure investment in economic and social infrastructure including over £297bn to 2020-2021;
• setting out a major roads and rail investment package including £15bn to support Highways England in transforming the Strategic Road Network with over 100 major schemes completed or in construction by the end of 2020-2021, and supporting the largest rail modernisation since Victorian times, including getting High Speed 2 into construction, completing Crossrail, and giving the green light to Crossrail 2 to proceed and significant investment in projects in the Northern Powerhouse;
• over £100bn invested by the private sector in energy projects across electricity generation, transmission and in the North Sea;
• facilitating private sector rollout of improved broadband and mobile networks through targeted investment, legislative and regulatory reform and increasing the amount of spectrum available to mobile operators.

Read the full NIDP report here or the Gov.uk news story