In the UK government’s future policy document ‘Building Britain’s Future’, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that a new body ‘Infrastructure UK’ will be established to advise on management and planning for the UK’s critical infrastructure.

In the document Gordon Brown states that Infrastructure UK will ‘bring more focus to the Government’s strategic work to ensure the development of the most up to date infrastructure’. The body will ‘identify the country’s long term infrastructure needs across a 5-50 year horizon, take stock of where current plans are taking us in the long term and analyse where more could be done, considering the interdependencies between different types of infrastructure.’

The announcement was welcomed by the Institution of Civil Engineers, which has been campaigning for more attention to be given to threats facing the UK’s critical infrastructure.

Director General of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Tom Foulkes said:
“The announcement that the government is to set up this new body, Infrastructure UK, is certainly a welcome one. The future productivity and growth of our nation depends largely on us having the highest quality infrastructure in place to support it, and this requires long term strategic planning and coordination led by a single point of authority – which is what this body must become.

“We must also ensure is that Infrastructure UK picks up the resilience issues raised recently in our State of the Nation: Defending Critical Infrastructure inquiry. If we are to combat threats from all areas, such as climate change, terrorism and system failure, it must take responsibility for coordinating the work of the numerous agencies currently dealing with individual sectors and threats and promote the essential concept of interdependency. Delivering the very best most up to date infrastructure networks will have little benefit if they are not properly defended.”

•Date: 2nd July 2009• Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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