Invest and Test
By Simon Jones – Chief Executive, Global Centre of Rail Excellence
The Spending Review marked an important moment for infrastructure in the UK.
The Chancellor’s announcement that significant additional investment will be made to kick start new housing, energy, defence, transport and digital projects is positive for a number of reasons.
Perhaps most significantly, it indicates a new commitment by the UK Government to investing in critical infrastructure and signals an important moment when it seems confident once again of what rail infrastructure in particular can achieve.
After the knock of confidence that the rail industry suffered following the scaling back of HS2, it’s a robust endorsement that UK government once again sees rail as a strategic way to grow the economy. For projects looking for private investment that’s a vital signal to the market that government is prepared to be bold and sees a vibrant future for the industry.
For UK government this is, at root, about the national growth mission and making sure that the changes to borrowing rules it has committed to pays off not only in terms of new jobs and skills but a sense of hope once again in areas that have been hit hard by de-industrialisation.
I for one welcome that approach, in particular the place-based nature of the investments being made. Changes to the government’s Green Book, the recent Infrastructure Strategy and the forthcoming Industrial Strategy indicate this is a government prepared to positively re-think, in a fundamental way, how our economy operates.
The development of – and investment in – high-quality infrastructure can support the visible creation of new green jobs and strategic, place-based economic development across the UK. But other measures could and should now be taken to ensure that the commitment being made to new infrastructure translates into effective delivery and that the significant new investments being made are maximised. A key area is looking afresh at how we plan and carry through major projects.
In particular, greater attention needs to be paid to how new infrastructure can be developed more affordably over the coming years. The average cost overrun for infrastructure projects in the UK is 57% and at a time of stretched resources – and when the government is making such an important investment commitment – it is imperative that we do not waste the opportunity ahead of us.
Rail infrastructure is one area where the affordability challenge needs to be tackled head on. One element of that is through the development of a new, purpose-built platform for world class rail innovation and systems integration testing, something that doesn’t currently exist in the UK.
The negative impacts of the current innovation gap in rail are all too painfully clear. For product and technology innovation, the lack of world class research, testing and certification capability slows down the time it takes for new ideas to be translated into new passenger enhancements and impacts everything from network performance to reliability to climate resilience. For infrastructure the impact is even starker, with the design, development and delivery of major projects severely hampered.
In particular, the lack of high-quality facilities for systems integration and pre-deployment testing has caused significant time and cost overruns for high profile rail projects. Crossrail is a standout recent example. The core Elizabeth Line infrastructure had been mainly constructed by 2017 but could not open until 2022 largely because the trains could not run without the necessary systems integration across the line.
The UK could begin to tackle some of these major rail infrastructure affordability challenges and at the same time ensure more of the impact of the investment now being committed is felt in the UK with a couple of important measures.
First, it could use its new investment as a lever to ensure that new and stronger operating standards are built into all major rail infrastructure projects requiring them to undertake quality, pre-deployment systems integration testing prior to their delivery phase, ensuring that they minimise the delays and cost overruns that have plagued major rail projects in recent years.
Second, it could mandate a bold new ‘Test-British Grow-British’ approach to rail innovation and infrastructure delivery which requires a greater share of rail products and testing, so critical to rail infrastructure ambitions, is done here in the United Kingdom. Such an approach could be achieved by the development of policy supports and incentives which encourage OEMs, manufacturers, infrastructure managers and the supply chain to utilise international standard, UK-based innovation facilities in the development and testing of new rail products and projects.
These might sound like dry and technical suggestions, but they could have an important impact on the delivery of the ambitions the government hope for.
First, they could help in terms of making sure that the significant investments being made by the UK Government in rail – not to mention the political capital it is spending – is not blunted by negative news stories about how technology and integration challenges are leading to projects going over time and over budget.
Second, it can show in a tangible way how rail is leaning into its new industrial strategy and growth mission in a meaningful way by supporting new domestic jobs and skills – an approach lots of other countries already take. GCRE itself will create 1,100 jobs over the next decade and support more than £1.2bn of wider benefits over its lifetime. At the same time it will create unique new capability in our economy and contribute to a range of important policy outcomes. For every £1 invested in GCRE, £15 is returned to the local economy, communities and wider industry, just fifteen miles from the Tata Steelworks where thousands of jobs are being lost over the next few years.
Imagine what impact this once-in-a-generation investment in new infrastructure can have if we put creativity, thought and planning behind it?
A big one, I bet.