Infrastructure planning needs an ‘adaptive’ approach to respond to uncertainty and the potential for unexpected behaviour changes in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, an event heard last week.
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Bridget Rosewell of the National Infrastructure Commission said “recognising that we don’t know” what the future holds for transport post-Covid “and therefore that we need to think about how to deal with that is really important”.
She championed the benefits of an adaptive approach “where you make clear commitments to the immediate priorities while still working on the need to take forward others; that seems to me to be one way in which to make sure we respond appropriately to the potential for behaviour change”.
Bridget also emphasised the need to use a “broader canvas” when it comes to the criteria used to assess different investments in infrastructure.
This should include consideration of factors such as productivity and economic growth, unlocking investment in land, improving quality of life and carbon and biodiversity. “All of these are things we need to be looking at more carefully when we think about the need for connectivity across the whole of the system.”
Bridget went on to tell the event – organised by the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum – that in the case of High Speed 2, not enough emphasis was placed on this broader canvas of benefits “because we had a top down approach that was all to do with time savings”.
“It is precisely that which we have been trying to get away from with the National Infrastructure Commission.”
She advocated for greater local input on major economic infrastructure schemes, and called for local areas to “have their own freedoms to do whatever it is they need to do for their area, so they are not continually in competition for specific funding pots”.
“I think that undermines devolution and it undermines the way in which communities generate their own priorities.”
The event later heard that plans to establish a new national infrastructure commission for Northern Ireland – which was announced in August – come following concerns that the UK Government’s Union Connectivity Review may represent a ‘power grab’ from Westminster on infrastructure.
Logistics UK policy manager for Northern Ireland Seamus Leheny told the conference that the Northern Ireland Assembly wishes to remain fully in charge of infrastructure plans and funding in the country.
(Image: High Speed 2)
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