Infrastructure Funding & Delivery
Infrastructure Funding and Delivery: An Action Plan for Change
During the current period of global change, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Balfour Beatty have worked with the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) to investigate new and innovative methods of funding transport infrastructure for the UK. This responds to a growing recognition that our industry must show leadership and momentum in developing solutions to new sources of funding and the alignment of key stakeholders in the process. Finding solutions and developing new models for infrastructure investment requires clients, government, and the private sector to come together and agree on a way forward. This report provides a pragmatic discussion of the issues, rather than a theoretical exercise in investment theory.
The UK’s status as a developed economy has perhaps made us complacent that increasing improvements in our existing infrastructure would always continue with minimal investment. However, the tough choices needed to renew and increase the capacity of some networks to support economic growth cannot be put off indefinitely. How we meet this challenge will, in part, influence the security, prosperity, and well-being of the UK for future generations.
This report considers both the current position and likely future directions, offering simple recommendations to the industry and to Government that will improve our ability to deliver major infrastructure for the future. It offers a way forward to steer the funding and delivery of transport infrastructure in the UK over the next 20 years. It deliberately stops short of a prescriptive remedy and for this reason should be relevant to many situations.
In summary, our main messages are:
- The public sector should facilitate greater private sector investment in the provision of new infrastructure by providing gap and forward funding to allow new projects to be taken forward.
- Government should better define roles and responsibilities of organisations involved in the planning and delivery of infrastructure, e.g., Local Enterprise Partnerships and Local Authorities, to allow quicker and more effective investment decisions.
- The creation of local investment funds to finance capital projects and which would be refunded by capturing the economic benefits of transport infrastructure as revenue streams.
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