10-Year Infrastructure Strategy

Seeing the problem is not the same as fixing it.

Only three weeks ago, government messaging was that developers should simply get on with delivering housing. Now, the 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy published last week quietly makes a very different admission:

"Each new home requires connections to water, wastewater, energy, transport and digital networks. Without this infrastructure, the homes that the country needs will not be delivered."

The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority’s (NISTA) new Spatial Tool will map infrastructure capacity and constraints across energy, water, wastewater, transport, flood risk and telecoms. For the first time, there will be national visibility of where infrastructure capacity exists and where it does not. 

At national scale:

- Ofwat’s 2024 Price Review funds 1,700 wastewater treatment upgrades and 3,000 storm overflow projects. This investment is primarily focused on actually achieving environmental compliance, not to provide capacity for 1.5 million new homes.

- Major investment in water infrastructure is required with £2 billion now allocated for nine new reservoirs and water transfer schemes. After 30 years without delivering a single new reservoir.

- Development is already being delayed by grid capacity. In West London, data centres have caused connection delays for housing developments.

The pattern repeats across sectors. We are still planning for housing numbers before securing utilities capacity.

The delivery risk remains local. Developers will continue to carry the burden of securing infrastructure upgrades as part of planning. Negotiating solutions, sequencing upgrades, agreeing funding, and delivering them remains a project-level responsibility. Unless visibility leads to capital delivery that is funded, sequenced and guaranteed, these remain risks. 

Planning permission is not deliverability. Infrastructure capacity is deliverability.

Until national infrastructure strategy moves from identifying constraints to funding capacity, many sites will continue to stall regardless of planning permissions or housing targets.

If you need help with infrastructure planning and strategy to support a new development, reach out to us at Flood & Civil.