The sainted Keith Mitchell of Peter Brett Associates (transport engineers and environmental consultants to those of a thoughtful and philosophical bent) has written a seminal series of articles for UKR which are pretty well required reading if you want a real-world take on what is going on in the infrastructure arena.
We haven't heard much comment on the National Infrastructure Plan in recent weeks and I was reminded of this when listening to Stuart Fraser of the City of London and Brendan Barber of the TUC debating the future of banking on R4 Today programme on Friday morning (now bear with me here). There seems to be a consensus emerging that the City has become a global leviathan, and that "British banking" (or banking services for Britain) is something of an endangered species. (Rather amusingly, the Today programme juxtaposed this item with a piece about the terminal decline of certain Gaelic dialects on the islands of Lewis and South Uist, without any obvious sense of irony whatsoever). Indeed, we recently - unconsciously - picked this up in the EG/UKR Build a Better Britain Regeneration Commission in the last few months, with our idea for a "local investors club".
My thesis is this: the (uncertain) future for British banking and the National Infrastructure Plan are two strands of activity vital to rebuilding the British economy, surely? Couldn't we usefully consider them together, just for a moment or two? As Keith Mitchell has commented, we "really welcome the push on infrastructure, but the net additional money and new starts in the short term seem limited, with reliance on longer-term money via the pension funds". And it does seem to be something of a mystery as to whether the pension fund proposition is a reworked PFI or something else. Just how will it work? There is much muttering about putting the pension funds to work locally but I haven't as yet seen a readily accessible model.
We haven't heard much comment on the National Infrastructure Plan in recent weeks and I was reminded of this when listening to Stuart Fraser of the City of London and Brendan Barber of the TUC debating the future of banking on R4 Today programme on Friday morning (now bear with me here). There seems to be a consensus emerging that the City has become a global leviathan, and that "British banking" (or banking services for Britain) is something of an endangered species. (Rather amusingly, the Today programme juxtaposed this item with a piece about the terminal decline of certain Gaelic dialects on the islands of Lewis and South Uist, without any obvious sense of irony whatsoever). Indeed, we recently - unconsciously - picked this up in the EG/UKR Build a Better Britain Regeneration Commission in the last few months, with our idea for a "local investors club".
My thesis is this: the (uncertain) future for British banking and the National Infrastructure Plan are two strands of activity vital to rebuilding the British economy, surely? Couldn't we usefully consider them together, just for a moment or two? As Keith Mitchell has commented, we "really welcome the push on infrastructure, but the net additional money and new starts in the short term seem limited, with reliance on longer-term money via the pension funds". And it does seem to be something of a mystery as to whether the pension fund proposition is a reworked PFI or something else. Just how will it work? There is much muttering about putting the pension funds to work locally but I haven't as yet seen a readily accessible model.
Needless to say, we need the right type of infrastructure, in the right place, focused on the right goals. From an initial look at the "list of priorities" just before Christmas, as Keith said, "it seems a bit indiscriminate". And, as ever, with government programmes, it seems to be the subject of perpetual rounds of funding bids, rather than a set of priorities and a long-term plan. Twas ever thus, I guess. (And, just to lard it up, for some months I have been saying that really there will be no point in having a National Infrastructure Plan if we don't use it to leverage up entry-level jobs and training opportunities for our own youngsters. Yet another cri de couer against globalism, I'm afraid).
But the key question is this: how do we get a focus on the infrastructure really needed to support the development of sustainable communities and town centres - as opposed to major schemes? Another challenge for localism. As we keep observing, more than ever now we need coherent civic leadership in our towns and cities. In the vacuum left by the withdrawal of banks from "real" Britain, this could include harnessing the energy and resources of local investors to match (or hopefully exceed) whatever is forthcoming from government. And targeting that energy and resource base entirely locally.
Mr Mitchell may well have just defined the central task for the emerging LEPs: translate government programmes, such as the National Infrastructure Plan, into something that genuinely, GENUINELY works in a specific locality. No mean feat. I'll warrant he'll be talking more about this - and other major opportunities as he sees them - at MIPIM. He is a right guru.
But the key question is this: how do we get a focus on the infrastructure really needed to support the development of sustainable communities and town centres - as opposed to major schemes? Another challenge for localism. As we keep observing, more than ever now we need coherent civic leadership in our towns and cities. In the vacuum left by the withdrawal of banks from "real" Britain, this could include harnessing the energy and resources of local investors to match (or hopefully exceed) whatever is forthcoming from government. And targeting that energy and resource base entirely locally.
Mr Mitchell may well have just defined the central task for the emerging LEPs: translate government programmes, such as the National Infrastructure Plan, into something that genuinely, GENUINELY works in a specific locality. No mean feat. I'll warrant he'll be talking more about this - and other major opportunities as he sees them - at MIPIM. He is a right guru.
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