Rob Mallows
West Yorkshire leaders engage on region’s infrastructure goals
Yesterday (5 July) saw Commissioners up in Leeds for our third regional visit of the summer, meeting West Yorkshire leaders and businesses to better understand the city region’s infrastructure priorities. After a one-to-one meeting, Sir John Armitt and West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin co-hosted a roundtable with representatives from the combined authority, Leeds City Council,...
Government response endorses Commission vision for greenhouse gas removals
The government has today (Tuesday 5th July) published its formal response to the Commission’s 2021 study, Engineered greenhouse gas removals. This study recommended that government commit to the wide scale deployment of new engineered greenhouse gas removal technologies by 2030 in order to meet its climate change obligations. The Commission concluded that these technologies offer the...
Commission hears from West Midlands on region’s infrastructure priorities
What West Midlands needs to build a thriving regional economy – and the role infrastructure can play in helping achieve that goal – was on the agenda for the Commission’s regional visit to Birmingham last week, the second in a series of six visits to cities and city regions around the country designed to help...
Getting cities moving past “Covid fog” critical for success of levelling up
Enabling people to make more trips in and around our major cities is a challenge that city leaders and national government must tackle head on by making urban transport networks work better – within carbon constraints – if they are to achieve levelling up, according to a new report from the National Infrastructure Commission. The...
Three new experts appointed to the Commission
The Treasury has today announced that Jim Hall, Kate Willard OBE and Nick Winser CBE have been appointed as new Commissioners to sit on the National Infrastructure Commission. Each has been appointed by the Chancellor for a five-year term and will begin work with the Commission on 1 May. Nick will replace Professor David Fisk CB,...
Commission welcomes “scale of ambition” of Energy Security Strategy
The Government has announced its ambition to boost the UK’s energy self-reliance with an expansion of clean energy generation, including new nuclear plants and a quicker expansion of solar and wind power, in its new Energy Security Strategy. In response, Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt said: “The government should be credited...
Electric Vehicle Strategy “a promising package” but delivery remains key
The government’s has today published its Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure Strategy setting out how it plans to ensure the UK is “EV-fit” by 2030, the date after which sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans will be banned. The new strategy sets out a number of actions to boost the pace of roll-out...
Commission highlights “slow progress” on infrastructure plans to deliver levelling up and net zero goals
The government is at risk of failing to deliver the aims of its National Infrastructure Strategy unless it picks up the pace with detailed policy design and implementation, the UK’s official independent infrastructure adviser has warned. The National Infrastructure Commission says that clear, long term goals are now in place across most infrastructure areas and...
“Ambitious implementation programme” essential to success of Levelling Up
The government has today published its Levelling Up white paper setting out its programme to ensure economic opportunity is more evenly spread across the whole country. It includes invitations to nine areas to create new county-wide deals and negotiations over ‘trailblazing’ devolution expansions deals with Manchester and West Midlands mayoral combined authorities. The white paper...
Regional water plans a positive step towards drought resilience for England
Commitments by water companies to take action together to secure long term water supplies for consumers and businesses in England have been welcomed by the Commission as an important step towards achieving long term resilience to drought. Consultations are now underway on new draft water resource management plans by the five regional water resources groups....
Five lessons from our overview of infrastructure challenges
Last month the Commission published its Baseline Report for the second National Infrastructure Assessment (NIA2), identifying key challenges for the coming decades that we will explore in more detail in that Assessment. I worked as lead author on the report, pulling together work from across the Commission’s team into a single narrative. Here are some...
“A realistic plan for major long term investments”: Commission responds to Integrated Rail Plan
Responding to the government’s publication of its Integrated Rail Plan, Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt said: “We now have a realistic plan for major long term investments to improve rail for the North and Midlands in the face of public spending constraints. In our advice to government the Commission made the...
James Heath speech to WEETF on delivering Gigabit-capable broadband
The following remarks were shared by the Commission’s Chief Executive James Heath at a WEETF eForum event on 2 November on the theme of ‘Delivering Gigabit-capable full-fibre broadband’. “I should start off by declaring an interest. Before I joined the National Infrastructure Commission, I worked at DCMS and was involved in designing the government’s broadband...
In sight but out of mind: designing infrastructure to support mental health
An opinion piece by Ann Zhang, economist at Frontier Economics and Chair of the Commission’s Young Professionals Panel. A Breath of fresh air: Green space and mental health If there is one lesson that lockdown has taught me, (aside from the fact I will never be a star baker), it is that access to green...
Fundamental shift in funding to local level needed to help level up English towns
Levelling up towns will require a shift in government’s approach from announcing multiple ringfenced pots of money – many of which councils must compete over – to instead handing power to local areas to deliver their own infrastructure strategies with five-year devolved budgets, according to the UK’s official infrastructure advisers. In a report launched today...