In its latest annual monitoring report, the NIC welcomes progress over the last year to take forward strategic road and railway improvements within the corridor including East West Rail and an Oxford to Cambridge expressway.

But, says the report, “the commission remains concerned about the overall level of integration between the planning of new housing and transport schemes to ensure that both East West Rail and the expressway unlock sites for new development”.

It also warns that there have been no requirements placed on local authorities to develop long term transport strategies to complement strategic east-west connections. And it criticises the Government for not moving to establish pipelines of long term infrastructure projects, conditional upon housing delivery milestones.

The monitoring report highlights action taken by the Government to deliver the recommendations of the NIC’s National Infrastructure Assessment and six targeted studies.

NIC chairman Sir John Armitt said: “There is a real and exciting chance available to ensure the UK benefits from world class infrastructure, particularly through the forthcoming National Infrastructure Strategy – a first for this country. We cannot afford for Ministers to take their eye off the ball.”

He called for Ministers to “go even further and faster” in enacting proposals from the commission’s studies, “where progress has been lagging in certain areas”.

For example within the Oxford to Cambridge arc the report warns that “the current rate of progress will not deliver new homes and transport links in an integrated way, or at the pace or quality required to meet the Government’s objectives”.

It calls for the Government to work to improve integration between transport schemes and housing development, and to prioritise developing an overarching ‘spatial vision’ for the arc.

England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) programme director Martin Tugwell said: “The EEH’s political and business leaders have long been champions of the need to provide greater clarity and certainty when it comes to future infrastructure requirements, particularly for private sector investors.

“This is why we are advocating a National Policy Statement for strategic infrastructure in the heartland. We have identified this as a way of providing longer term certainty, as well as a way of using existing legislation to join up more effectively investment in strategic infrastructure to a common purpose.

EEH is also due to publish a draft transport strategy this summer.

The NIC’s monitoring report also places focus on the issue of Crossrail 2, highlighting on going delays to decision making on the scope, funding and timetable for the project. Further delays, it says, will make laying a hybrid bill for Crossrail 2 in this Parliament challenging and could push back the expected completion date beyond the early to mid 2030s.

“Important decisions should not be rushed; however neither should Crossrail 2 face endless delay,” the report says, urging the Government and Transport for London to agree on the route and publish a firm timetable and funding proposal by no later than this autumn.

A Government spokesman said: “Improving the UK’s infrastructure is at the heart of our plan to boost growth and productivity as part of our modern Industrial Strategy. We are putting record amounts into Britain’s roads, railways, schools and hospitals, with investment reaching levels not sustained for forty years.

“We established the National Infrastructure Commission to provide independent, expert advice and this report will help ensure we deliver infrastructure projects in the most effective way.”

• A direct rail link connecting Oxford to Ipswich and Norwich would unlock £17.5Bn for the East Anglian economy according to a new report published by the East West Rail Consortium.

The ‘Eastern Section Rail Prospectus’ report says that this proposed leg of the East West Rail project would connect key industries across the region with improved journey times and service frequencies between Cambridge and East Anglia.

(Photograph: Highways England)