Our infrastructure, construction and energy 2025 forum this February with the IPA

Future Cities Forum is holding its next infrastructure discussion event in February with Karl Fitzgerald, Director of Project, Programme and Portfolio Management, at the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, in the London offices of leading law firm, DLA Piper.

The forum discussion will look at the recent UK government announcement of 'more gigafactories, solar farms, roads and railway lines are set to be green lighted in the next five years, adding billions to the economy', as well as the continued issues of infrastructure required for green energy distribution and how the planning system in England can change to speed this up.

Karl explained at our previous infrastructure and energy forum last May, that the planning system in his view is an easy target within current discussions, with it being quite 'baroque' - that it has its flaws and challenges, and 'tinkering with it' slows it down which means investment also slows, practitioners pause and that has a 'braking' effect. He also stated that resource and capacity issues are a big concern.

On the OxCam Arc, he described how ambitions for growth across the OxCam Arc are still current with Milton Keynes wanting to expand. In terms of infrastructure. He said that East West Railway is progressing, but there is a lack of a supervising authority to oversee it. Growth and development with the lack of water in and around Cambridge may have some serious implications on individual consumer use in the east of England he explained, as it could take up to ten years to create a new reservoir. With the current focus on data and AI innovation, he noted that data centres are often using as much drinking quality water to cool their systems as might be used by a whole village.

On energy infrastructure he said:

'The big issue we are facing is about infrastructure connectivity, especially in regard to utilities, energy and water, particularly in the east. of England. The energy challenge is a multi-facetted, four dimensional chess problem and our colleagues in the Department for Energy and Net Zero are wrestling with that because there is a transition to a low carbon grid, and a decentralised generating context coming out now, with more solar distributed in different places and expansion of off shore wind farm connectivity.

'The growth in the transmission system to meet that is at a level which is comparable to the investment made in the 1950s to the 1970s but it is really twice that, and it needs to be delivered in the next 20 years. It's a huge challenge both in terms of supply chain and figuring out where it needs to go because of balancing the grid and balancing the sources, inter-connection, generation and demand, and where it comes to communities.

'Where will the growth be? There is lots of pressure from power hungry growth sources such as data centres. It is putting a strain on planning for the grid, and then you have the regulatory framework which was not conceived of for delivering a de-carbonised grid.

'There are the regulatory challenges, the technical challenges, the capacity challenges and then the network geography challenges - people are uncomfortable with more pylons marching across the landscape.'

Recently, the UK government suggested that 'planning decisions for major infrastructure projects are set to soar, ramping up economic growth, with at least 150 applications to be decided, as part of the ambitious Plan for Change. Investment in major infrastructure is key to delivering growth and will help improve people’s lives through additional jobs, better connectivity and cheaper energy bills.

It stated:

'The pledge comes as government vows to rebuild Britain, arrest decades of failures and fix the housing crisis to deliver for working people. New ambitious milestones will create higher living standards in every region of the country so that working people have more money in their pockets – an unrelenting focus of the Mission-led government. This is part of the extensive Plan for Change programme announced by the Prime Minister that will deliver a decade of national renewal.

'The new milestone asks Secretaries of States to turbocharge decisions on major infrastructure projects – almost tripling the 57 decisions made in the previous Parliament and more than the total number of decisions made since 2011. This is alongside building 1.5 million safe and decent homes.

'While the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill will set out how the delivery process for critical infrastructure is streamlined, including accelerating upgrades to the national grid and boosting renewable energy.

'New 10-year strategies for housing and infrastructure will also be published next Spring, providing a roadmap for future investment and economic growth.'