Improving the UK's infrastructure would boost GDP by 5% or £100Bn a year according to new research carried out for the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA).

And having infrastructure which falls short of typical developed economy standards has cost the country £78Bn in the decade betweek 2000 and 2010 says the Centre for Economics & Business Research (CEBR) in its CECA report 'Securing our economy: The case for infrastructure'.

CEBR also says that for every 1000 jobs created by infrastructure investment a further 3050 are created in the wider economy and that for each £1Bn of infrastructure investment GDP increases by £1.3Bn.

Report author and CEBR economist Daniel Solomon said: "The UK has paid a high price for having infrastructure which has fallen short of our competitors. We estimate GDP might have been about 5% higher over the past decade if the UK's infrastructure quality had been in line with countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands."

Following the research CECA is making a number of recommendations to Government which include:

*Government to establish a formal threshold for new infrastructure construction activity ensuring that it does not fall below 0.8% of GDP at which level it creates detrimental activity for the wider economy.

*New infrastructure activity to be at or above 1% of GDP over the coming five years to stimulate growth.

*Government to promote prudential borrowing for local authorities to address their highway maintenance backlog through a one off national programme of intensive improvements to local roads, significantly reducing the long term cost of maintaining the network.

*Government to develop a new model for the ownership and management of the strategic roads network.

To return to the newsletter, please close this window.