MPA calls for greater focus on project delivery

Association highlights the need for implementation and delivery of infrastructure investment programme

COMMENTING on the Chancellor’s Conservative Party Conference speech, in which the first projects in the forthcoming second Road Investment Strategy – the £25 billion commitment for strategic roads between 2020 and 2025 – were revealed, MPA executive director Jerry McLaughlin welcomed Sajid Javid’s announcement that existing plans for national road investment will be sustained over the next five years and the specific schemes announced, but highlighted the importance of actually delivering projects.

‘Consistency in long-term investment programmes enables the supply chain to plan and supply more efficiently, particularly in the mineral products industry where planning cycles for new capacity, such as quarries, are very long term. We continue to call for much greater government focus on the implementation and delivery of infrastructure programmes,’ said Mr McLaughlin.

‘The current national road programme (Road Investment Strategy, RIS1) is heavily backloaded, with persistent and continuing delays on planning and progressing schemes. This has significantly reduced supply chain confidence in the delivery of the programme,’ he explained, adding that ‘unless such issues are resolved, there will remain an underlying lack of confidence in the delivery of the roads programme, even if the underlying policy is positive.’