All Recommendations

By the end of 2024, government should explore options for funding property level measures for those properties that remain at high risk of surface water flooding because improving drainage infrastructure is not cost effective.

Every local transport authority should have a long term infrastructure strategy for the towns in its area, supported by a pipeline of projects. These strategies should be developed locally and collaboratively as part of, or complementary to, distinctive 15 year place based plans for the economic development of towns. Infrastructure strategies and wider plans should draw on local strengths, presenting a distinctive vision for towns. To ensure accountability, infrastructure strategies and wider plans should set out clear, transparent outcomes and, at the end of each five year funding period (see recommendation 2), local authorities will need to carry out assessments of whether those outcomes have been achieved.

The government should give local areas greater control over funding and decision making on local infrastructure investment. It should provide all county and unitary authorities, or combined authorities where they are in place, with devolved five year budgets for infrastructure, to match the arrangements in place for mayoral combined authorities. Funding should be allocated on a simple basis that reflects population and the size of the transport network being managed.

In addition to devolved budgets for infrastructure, the government should provide targeted funding for key strategic priorities: where infrastructure outcomes are particularly poor, or where infrastructure could help towns seize economic opportunities. To access this targeted funding, places will have to demonstrate that they have a credible infrastructure strategy and wider placed based plan in place.

The government should make available expert strategic advice and support for places that lack the capability and capacity to develop their own infrastructure strategies and wider place based plans. The government should determine which national organisation or body is best placed to provide that support and ensure it is adequately funded.

The government should set out a clear plan, with milestones and funding, for delivery of gigabit broadband to the hardest to reach premises that will require public subsidy. In those towns where there are likely to be gaps in commercial rollout, and the government’s regional procurement programme is scheduled to start later, the government should work with local authorities and operators to identify opportunities for local solutions and facilitate voucher funded projects to accelerate coverage wherever possible.

The government should develop a strategy by 2022 for encouraging the take up of new communications networks and services by small and medium enterprises.

Ofcom and the government should consider real world user experience data, alongside prediction models, to improve the understanding of how people experience mobile connectivity in different places and identify any significant patterns that need to be addressed. As part of this, consideration should be given to whether Ofcom’s existing reporting on user experience can be extended to provide a more granular view of localised mobile user experience.

The government should publish the electric vehicle charging infrastructure strategy, without further delay, followed by a roadmap for the rollout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in towns. Local infrastructure strategies should also include an active role for the local authority in planning and managing the rollout of on street electric vehicle charging.

The government should support innovation in towns where trials would be too costly and risky for local authorities to run on their own, and where government involvement can accelerate progress substantially. This should be delivered via a local innovation fund and should include:

• partnering with towns to run innovation pilots for new communication technologies, including 5G use cases
• supporting experimentation and early rollout for innovations in on demand bus services.

Government should ensure that lessons from trials are transparently and proactively shared.

Government must make a clear commitment to deploy a range of different engineered removals at megatonne scale in the UK no later than 2030 and must publish a detailed plan to deliver this by the end of 2022. This should form the basis for an enduring policy regime which will maximise the likelihood of the UK playing a leading role in the development of engineered removals.

Action on deploying engineered removals must not reduce effort from emissions reduction, which should be used to cut most of the country’s emissions. Government’s net zero strategy should set this out clearly.

By 2024, and before any engineered removals are deployed at scale in the UK, government must put in a place an independent monitoring regime. This must:

• be robust, transparent and instil public and investor confidence
• ensure that any removals are genuine and verifiable, including putting in place a monitoring, reporting and verification regime
• account for the full lifecycle emissions of technologies, regardless of whether those emissions occurred inside or outside the UK
• be consistent with the principles to protect the natural environment set out in the Environment Bill.

A market for engineered removals, whereby government support can gradually fall away, should be created by obligating polluting sectors to offset their emissions. Obligations on polluting sectors should cover a growing proportion of emissions over time, reaching 100 per cent no later than 2050.

Government should support a portfolio of engineered removals and deploy a range of first of a kind plants at scale no later than 2030. To support deployment, government should use a combination of:

• staged competitions, focused on pulling through early stage technologies to commercial readiness
• direct investment, with the option for the involvement of the UK Infrastructure Bank
• contracts for revenue with government using competitive auctions where possible, and consider the feasibility of linking the contracts to a market-based mechanism, such as the newly established UK Emission Trading Scheme.