Infrastructure planning in the UK – old and new stories November 2010

An old story In the 1970s major shifts were made in the UK energy economy: –Gas from North Sea, including creation of completely new distribution system. –Many nuclear power stations built. –Coal remaining as core fuel source. All state managed, with strong (spatial) planning involvement.

2010s and 2020s An even bigger energy system change now widely seen to be needed now, and similarly with transport, mainly to lower carbon. State levers are now mainly regulatory, and via (spatial) planning – though still own roads and, largely, rail tracks. How can it be done?

Difficult politics Overall a funnelling effect, so that there is less room for manoeuvre in choosing sites or routes – protection systems, heritage, consciousness of place, property rights etc. Politicians therefore under very strong pressures – planning in tight corners.

Difficult geographies For transport, the key remains the “axial belt” or “central constellation” cities link to south east – how to fit in more capacity for rail and freight. But also other pressure routes, and energy especially moving power from electricity generation off coasts. Devolved administrations (and the seas) have more of the sort of “easier” space most European states have.

Necessary ingredients of solutions1 National agreement, worked up by consistently led national debate on new geography, related to economic bases of the country: unless people can see the sense, these schemes will not be accepted. Requires consistent low carbon drive from government. A national development strategy – for a private economy: rethinking of state role.

Necessary ingredients of solutions2 Long term alliances with the core infrastructure corporations who will build and run most of this: established by effective regulatory machine building trust over generations and new powers to ensure corporations not taken over all the time. New state arrangements across all infrastructure industries – beyond the privatisation and/or competition model, which cannot possibly bring these changes. So the key is in changing the whole model, not in spatial planning.

Conclusions 1 Clearly an ideological problem, not a technical or geographical one. But EU and current ideologies do not allow the above solutions. Simply needs to be argued for – signs that many do understand that most of infrastructure industries are not working well.

Conclusions 2 The larger part would still be changing the whole system more radically, to stop economic growth and move to managed consumption model. But this is even more implausible within a capitalist system. Nevertheless all the obvious measures of societal efficiency (energy, transport, waste, water) should be the other main drive, of greater importance than above discussion of infrastructure.