The Chancellor unveiled her Spending Review yesterday, promising to deliver investment, jobs and growth in every part of the country as part of ‘renewing’ Britain. She outlined £113 billion of capital investment over the next three years, with economic and social infrastructure at the heart of the Government’s plans to facilitate better public services, connect towns and cities, and improve people’s lives. The key points for construction included:
- £39 billion for a new Affordable Homes Programme to help build affordable and social housing over 10 years
- £15.6 billion for local transport upgrades across nine city regions outside of London and £2.2 billion for Transport for London’s capital renewals programme
- £30 billion for nuclear power, including £14.2 billion to build Sizewell C nuclear power station and £2.5 billion for the Small Modular Reactor programme
- £7 billion for the renewal of military accommodation, including £1.5 billion of new investment for rapid work to fix forces family housing
- £2.4 billion per year for the School Rebuilding Programme over the next four years and £2.3 billion per year to fix and maintain existing schools
- £1.2 billion of additional skills funding to support over 1.3 million 16 – 19-year-olds to access training.
The Government is expected to publish its 10‐year Infrastructure Strategy next week, setting out in one place a long-term plan for delivering and maintaining the country’s economic, social and housing infrastructure. The strategy will be followed by a pipeline of projects, due to be published before Parliamentary recess begins on 22 July, which will provide more granular detail of all the projects. Taken together, they should be a step forward in giving businesses across the industry the confidence they need to plan and invest.
The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), which will oversee the implementation of the Infrastructure Strategy, will be joining Build UK’s next All Member Forum on Tuesday 1 July at 8:30am to give an overview and look ahead to publication of the pipeline.