The UK needs to establish a clearer sense of what the nation needs from it infrastructure investment, says Dr Mark Dittmer-Odell, CBI Head of Infrastructure

This summer saw a victory of sorts for UK infrastructure decision-making. Whatever your views on airport expansion in the South East, the fact that the Airports Commission were able to independently weigh up the evidence and offer such a decisive final report was a ray of light in an often opaque world of infrastructure decision-making.

And yet, it underlines something we all know – the UK is not good at taking an evidence-based approach to long-term infrastructure decision-making, and all too often, we wait until crunch time to take action.

"A forward look alone is not enough – it’s what you do with that information that counts. This means getting better at planning, and then delivering"

This inability to take decisions impacts first and foremost the UK’s connectivity – vital for moving people, goods and services around the country, around the clock. However it goes much further than that. Waiting until crunch time leaves us on the back foot – it fundamentally impacts upon our ability to think and act strategically in how we effectively and efficiently deliver that connectivity too.

The most obvious impact of this is that we end up planning individual projects in isolation, which results in a domino effect of lost opportunities. We miss the chance to make complementary investments. Cost-benefit analyses fail to capture the transformative effects infrastructure can have. Political and public support wavers, reducing investor confidence and pushing up the cost of capital. Failure to sequence projects pushes up the cost of construction. And then once again, support for the project takes a hit.

What we should be aiming for is infrastructure that is more than the sum of its individual parts, and that will only come with a more integrated and strategic approach to the way we make decisions. 

The starting point must be a clearer sense of what the UK needs – something that explains why Sir John Armitt’s proposals for a national needs assessment enjoys strong support from businesses. This puts us on the front foot.

"What we should be aiming for is infrastructure that is more than the sum of its individual parts"

But a forward look alone is not enough – it’s what you do with that information that counts. This means getting better at planning, and then delivering, ‘packages’ of complementary upgrades across sectors and geographies, over longer time periods – taking a systems approach to UK infrastructure. It also means clearer articulation of a vision for how we tackle our infrastructure challenges over decades, rather than over a single parliament.

These are factors that should be at the forefront of this Government’s mind as it puts together a National Infrastructure Plan for the new parliament and beyond.

And yes, finally, it means our politicians being brave enough to tackle the hard decisions head-on when faced with the evidence – a challenge that awaits the Prime Minister later this year.

Dr Mark Dittmer-Odell is Head of Infrastructure at the CBI