The budget injected an additional £15bn worth on investment into the UK’s infrastructure across five years starting in 2015-16; which would mean that the average spend on infrastructure investment up to 2020 would be £35bn per year. The extra funding will help speed up the delivery the 40 top priority project within the UK infrastructure plan, and the additional funding will be used to aid the completion of developments at King’s Cross Station and eight Highways Authority Projects. In total an extra £18bn will be spent on road and rail projects by the end of the next government. This does offer ICT vendors opportunities connected to expanding both heavy and light rail networks, delivering opportunities within the ticketing and smart travel technologies space; and future road management technology contracts, to make best use of ICT to limit the impacts of current and future congestion.
Certainly increased investment into roads – for those within the transport space is good news. Current initiatives, such as CHARM by the Highways Agency and the Dutch counterparts will make it easier for non-specialist firms to move into this space particularly with reforms to the supply chain and the introduction of ever more advanced intelligent transport systems. However, the £15bn worth infrastructure investment will have competing priorities, which risks high profile transport technology led plans being sidelined. As the UK approaches an energy cliff – it is unclear whether much of announced extra infrastructure investment will actually be used to support the UK’s energy needs. Elsewhere in government today, plans for a new nuclear power plant at Hinckley were announced providing energy for 5m homes. The cost of this site is £14bn, which although not connected to the budget funding – does show that you wouldn’t get much change, if the Chancellor’s extra funding is used to invest in energy projects; twinned with pressures from the cost of large transport programmes on the horizon, for example High Speed 2.
Outside of strategic infrastructure, the budget also supported some many of the suggestions made in Lord Hestletine’s ‘No Stone Unturned’ plan to strength the UK’s economy at a regional level. This includes a Single Local Growth Fund to be competed for by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), although the “lowish billions” confirmed for the fund will be far less than the £50bn mooted in the report. These funds will be available for innovative projects connected to skills, housing and transport. Once this will lead to competing priorities – however, one suspects like the funds winnable by local authorities under the Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) that the pot will encourage intelligent travel solutions, which bodes well for ICT vendors in this market.
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