National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline

We know that our communities cannot function in silos and nor should investment in infrastructure. High quality infrastructure boosts economic growth, drives up productivity and elevates living standards. By bringing together £500bn of planned investment in housing, social and economic infrastructure, the Government’s National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, published this week (5 December), attempts to assess and document in one place, planned investment in infrastructure across the private and public sectors.

The good news for local authorities and private companies alike is the ability to use the National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline to strategically examine the projected infrastructure planned to 2020/21 and beyond which can help an ambitious council, in partnership or otherwise, to strategically allocate the necessary funding for key projects, in housing for example.

Regional Split:

North Yorkshire and the Humber 34%
Midlands 18%
East of England 9%
London and the South 39%

The geographical split of key programmes of work across the English regions will not have gone unnoticed among our readership. The North/South divide continues to dominate the infrastructure debate. Unsurprisingly, November’s Department of Transport’s Oral Questions in the Commons actively referenced infrastructure for the North of England with several MPs on the opposition benches arguing greater transport infrastructure in the East to West would be the real driver of growth and regeneration in the North.

HM Government has committed £13bn in transport improvement over this Parliament and has established Transport for the North to deliver the Northern strategy. Cratus eagerly awaits TfN’s proposals for greater transport infrastructure in the North and for East to West links due to be published in early 2017. In the meantime, the Treasury has announced this week that £300bn of the planned £500bn will be spent by 2021.