DAVID SMITH’S pleas for more public infrastructure investment may fall on deaf ears (“The money’s there, so why can’t we start building?”, last week). As a retired senior project manager who worked in this sector for more than 25 years, let me explain why new projects are not starting.
The public fails to appreciate that — many years before anybody starts wielding a shovel — the team running a big project has to micro-manage a huge set of planning, technical, safety, community consultation and environmental regulations. Even if financing is in place, resolving these complex issues has always caused great delays. Therefore, a substantial scheme’s preparatory period is always far longer than the building period.
The explanation for why infrastructure spending is now at historically low levels is that, in the recent past, almost no detailed preparatory work has been undertaken. There are now very few “shovel ready” big projects anywhere in the UK.
Despite what economists might wish for, I strongly suspect that construction industry spending levels will remain very low for several years.
Peter Bryson Addingham, West Yorkshire
Peter Bryson Addingham, West Yorkshire
No comments:
Post a Comment