The writer was founding chair of the UK’s National Infrastructure Commission (2015-2018) and a former transport secretary
What do a huge reservoir at Abingdon, new nuclear power stations in Anglesey and Cumbria, the electrification of the Transpennine inter-city railway and England’s largest onshore wind farm, on Scout Moor in Lancashire, have in common?
All four are big, vital pieces of national infrastructure proposed in the last 15 years. But all four were rejected or deferred, victims of “Nimby” opposition upheld by the government, and/or of the hostility of the Treasury and its utility regulators to major infrastructure projects, particularly those requiring significant public investment.