Britain is forgetting to build a future

‘Britain loves infrastructure”, Boris Johnson once declared in characteristically vague terms. And who doesn’t? Roads, bridges, ports, mass transport – infrastructure is the backbone of a vibrant economy and quality of life. It facilitates international trade, enables businesses to operate and people to get to work.

If only Britain was actually good at building things. For a country whose visionary Victorian engineers led the world with design prowess and more importantly swift execution, the UK’S modern-day track record when it comes to major construction is dire.

From Crossrail to Heathrow’s third runway, Hinkley Point C, and now HS2, Britain is a laughing stock.

Yes, there has been progress such as Terminal 5 at Heathrow and some of London’s train station upgrades, but when it comes to building things from scratch, it’s hard to think of anything of note over the last two decades, unless you count the Millennium Dome, an £800m Teflon tragedy until American billionaire Philip Anschutz rescued it from oblivion and turned the site into a successful gig venue.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph this week, MP Greg Smith made a great point about HS2: if any good can come from the Government’s broken promises over the new mega-railway, it is that it has become abundantly clear that the economic case has never been weaker.

It is alarming enough that the bill has spiralled from £20bn when it was originally conceived under the Labour government a decade ago, to £100bn today, but MPS on the public accounts committee recently made the startling admission that there is “no clear end in sight” to costs and delays.

If it wasn’t for the fact that large parts of Buckinghamshire have already been torn up, and tunnelling is under way in the Chilterns, then it would be wise to scrap the entire wasteful escapade now that HS2 will fail to deliver for the people that it was most intended for.

While attempts to build ambitious infrastructure are repeatedly beset by huge delays and vast cost overruns, China is the envy of the world, possessed with an awe-inspiring capacity to erect giant structures with the click of a party official’s fingers.

A 57-storey skyscraper assembled in 19 working days; a coronavirus hospital erected in little over a week; a 10-storey apartment block built in a superhuman 29 hours – evidence of the country’s construction genius is everywhere.

Joe Biden is scrambling to catch up with a massively ambitious yet practical $1.75trillion (£1.3trillion) programme on roads, bridges, railways, broadband and electrical vehicles, but Britain is stuck in bottom gear, held back by inept government, endless public inquiries, nimbyism, and an army of overpaid consultants, lawyers and lobbyists that exist to halt progress at every turn.

It’s not just HS2. Take Crossrail. Originally meant to have been opened by the Queen in December 2018 – it is three years late and more than £4bn over budget, putting the total cost so far at an eye-watering £19bn. Or Heathrow’s third runway, given the green light in 2016 and yet never further away from inception after air travel collapsed during the pandemic.

The question of UK airport capacity has been around since the days of the 1968 Roskill Commission, yet as the Institute for Government points out, the only new runways built in recent decades have been at London City and Manchester airports. Otherwise, the country remains largely reliant on tarmac laid in the mid-20th century.

Our record on new nuclear is arguably worse. We don’t have the money or know-how to build new plants ourselves – yet nor can ministers persuade foreign investors to, unless you count the French and that hasn’t exactly gone well. Under the guidance of EDF, Hinkley C – Britain’s first new nuclear plant in three decades – is on course to be at least nine years overdue and £7bn over budget.

Toshiba has pulled out of plans for a new plant in Cumbria, Hitachi has scrapped proposals to build two new plants at Wylfa, Anglesey, and Oldbury, Gloucestershire, despite myriad incentives, and the future of Sizewell C and Bradwell are both in grave doubt.

The Garden Bridge, one of many madcap schemes Boris dreamt up as mayor of London, deserves a special mention, scrapped in 2017 at a cost of £53m. Thankfully his idea of a £110bn floating landing strip in the Thames and a 28-mile bridge connecting Stranraer in Scotland to Larne in Northern Ireland never came close to reality.

The fine line between vision and wild fantasy is not one that our chaotic Prime Minister recognises. And while he dresses up in hard hat and high vis for the cameras, America is planning to counter China’s rise with the biggest construction programme since Roosevelt’s New Deal dragged the country out of the Great Depression.

As Biden says, if it doesn’t step up, China will “eat our lunch”.

‘Airports remain largely reliant on tarmac laid in the mid20th century’