In the middle of a global pandemic, the UK laid out a bold vision for its
future - and its fate lies in the hands of construction.
Over the past few decades, we've failed to invest enough in the United Kingdom,
which has meant that the quality of our infrastructure has fallen
behind that of other countries.
This 100-page document may look dull, and to be honest it is.
But if you can get past the government
catch phrases, like “build back better,” you’ll actually find an incredibly ambitious plan -
one that bets on economic equality, climate change and a fragmented society
all being partly solved by the building industry.
From massive high-speed railways to super-sewers,
tunnels under ancient landmarks and fibre-optic broadband,
these huge, complex, and often controversial megaprojects could change the nation.
The U.K.’s infrastructure goals aren’t necessarily unique.
Countries around the world are trying to better connect their
residents and reduce their carbon footprints.
But the U.K. is the first major economy to say this…
We will be ending our contribution to climate change by 2050 and legislating
for a net-zero emissions target.
The U.K. is probably one of the most
proactive countries globally having official governmental commitment on carbon emissions.
Will that be enough? I think that that's a really interesting question.
With economies reeling from the pandemic, the U.K. government is betting that strategic
infrastructure investment can help create jobs and promote spending on materials.
Well, I always refer to the national infrastructure
strategy as a once in a generation transformation.
It's a really long term commitment and it quite
literally is an ambition to build back the country.
It's backed by hundreds of billions of pounds.
In fact, the U.K. is investing the highest levels of public funds since the late 1970s,
and it’s set up a new Infrastructure Bank to co-invest in projects
alongside the private sector.
I think it's a great opportunity for us
to redesign the existing infrastructure and build new infrastructure in the way
that it really works with the environment,
which will require a bit of a mindset change. But we have lots of tools
and skills that we can work with.
Infrastructure funding will be spread
out across the country, with perhaps the biggest undertaking being HS2.
The 530-kilometre high-speed railway is currently Europe’s largest infrastructure project,
and it’s set to be a pretty critical plank in the U.K.'s transport system when it
eventually connects the Midlands to the South.
HS2 is aiming to run 18 trains an hour to and
from London at speeds of up to 360 kilometres per hour.
It means constructing some 300 bridges, 70 viaducts and six new train stations.
But HS2 has faced criticism for its impact on the
country’s landscape and the relocation of families and businesses that live in the railway’s path.
It’s also been dubbed the world’s most expensive railway - cost estimates
have ballooned from the initial USD $27 billion to more than USD $147 billion.
And it’ll be a while before it’s complete - the current projection for Phase 1 puts it
somewhere between 2029 and 2033.
It's an important infrastructure.
It will help with mobility. It will help with the connectivity.
Will it solve all the transport problems in the UK? Probably not.
If you enable the connectivity and if that's the area of further development,
then really thinking about the locations around the HS2 and how they will be,
either built further or maybe they can be retrofitted is really important.
So the kind of regional aspect and different levels of planning.
There’s also a desire to better connect the South West, an area long-lacking in decent
infrastructure that could be unlocked by the somewhat controversial Stonehenge Tunnel.
To cut traffic from the notorious bottleneck on the A303 road that passes Stonehenge - where
everyone slows to look at the landmark - the $2.3 billion tunnel would run directly under
the prehistoric site, placing a 3.3-kilometre new stretch of dual carriageway below ground.
Proponents say it would reduce air, light and noise pollution around the World Heritage Site.
But legal battles have played out over whether the project
would cause irreparable damage to the landscape around Stonehenge.
And Unesco has said the site’s status could be in jeopardy over the plans.
The project has been on again and then off again, for decades.
It's the tradeoff and the balance, which is very difficult to get.
So how much you are building more because it's good for people and it will help them increase
their mobility, versus the environmental impact, which it definitely has.
Hold your nose and journey just beneath the surface of the UK’s
capital - and you’ll find a $5.5BN super-sewer under construction.
Sewage in London typically flows through a system of tunnels to a treatment facility,
but when it rains the current Victorian system overflows
and raw sewage spills into the Thames.
To solve this, the city is constructing a
15-mile long underwater tunnel that’s the width of three London buses.
The idea is that when the current system overflows,
the most polluting sewage will be rerouted to the new tunnel up to 65 metres below ground.
The project is being paid for by customers’ water bills,
and is expected to prevent millions of tonnes of sewage from polluting the river.
The U.K. is also investing in flood defences across the nation, something
that’s particularly pressing as streets and train stations have flooded in recent months.
Another urgent infrastructure challenge is getting everyone reliable internet.
The U.K.’s gigabit broadband coverage lags behind other countries.
And providing the entire nation with high-speed broadband
will require enough cabling to wrap around the Earth more than 10 times.
The government is aiming to get 85% of the U.K. gigabit capable coverage by 2025.
80% of the total work is expected to be done by private companies like CityFibre,
Openreach and Virgin Media.
The other 20% will be covered by
the government, which is investing nearly USD $7 billion to address those harder to reach places.
Beyond broadband, the government has been pushing
for a digital revolution within the construction industry itself
and when it comes to tech adoption, the infrastructure sector tends to lag behind.
That’s because it deals with big, complicated projects that often take decades to complete.
That means lots of site visits, handovers, contracts and of course, paperwork.
But this new infrastructure strategy might be just the push it needs to finally go fully digital.
It's an industry in particular that is steeped in history and tradition in the way of doing things.
If you were trying to do in the old days in a non-digital method, you're having to go
back and chase multiple sources and archives of probably paper based information or even multiple
sources of data that might be in somebody's hard drive or network storage somewhere.
That’s now steadily changing as teams shift and embrace digital collaboration.
The pandemic has upended the way we work, but in a way also accelerated the infrastructure sector to
become more efficient, flexible and sustainable.
With fewer people working on-sites,
digital collaboration tools like Bluebeam’s Revu have enabled construction on major
infrastructure projects to keep going - often in a much more efficient and paperless way.
I think it's now exposed that this is a must. People can't go back to doing things the old way.
The mere fact that we've seen projects continue through lockdown and through
a pandemic in the last year and a half, I think is evident that if they didn't adopt
new technologies and digital approaches, they wouldn't be able to do any of these things.
Building infrastructure is hard. It takes billions of dollars, and decades
of planning, construction and maintenance.
But if it’s done right, it has the potential to better the lives of millions of people.
I think the impact of this strategy will be a nation that is fairer, faster at delivering major projects and greener.
And as the U.K. seeks to set itself apart from the rest of Europe, this plan might be just the
opportunity construction needs to reinvent itself as a more sustainable, digital industry.
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