Peer review: Ailie MacAdam
Managing Director of infrastructure – Europe and Africa, Bechtel
The creation of a National Infrastructure Commission is something that the industry and I have been waiting for. It’s well-known that long-term planning is the basis for the successful delivery of infrastructure projects, even though short and medium-term issues such as budgets, interfaces, politics and other external pressures may still have an impact.
Every time I walk through St Pancras International station, a project I was fortunate enough to work on when I led the team that delivered High Speed 1 ten years ago, I think of the old, dingy, (let’s face it) worst station on Euston Road that sat there 15 years ago, seemingly with its best days long behind it. Government commitment to HS1 and a new gateway to mainland Europe gave the certainty and the funding for the transformative, inspirational building we know and love today. I am hugely proud of Crossrail (which I will come onto in a moment), and I enjoyed every minute of the London Olympics, but before both of those came St Pancras. To me, that and HS1 were the first iconic UK infrastructure projects in a long time, demonstrating to politicians and the travelling public that this country - which brought the world the railways - hadn’t forgotten how to be ambitious with our infrastructure. The confidence it brought to the railway should not be forgotten either.
Crossrail, the largest infrastructure project in Europe, has been described as a “textbook example of how to get things right”. In my role as project director (and Bechtel’s as delivery partner) on Crossrail, it was clear that providing effective programme management would be vital to not just keeping the project on time and to budget, but also to communicating with the numerous stakeholders involved on a project of this scale.
While Crossrail still has some way to go before it is complete, it wouldn’t have got this far without political champions from the outset, a strong client, continued support from the City and the community, and a vision of how the project would fit into a wider, integrated transport scheme. Successive London Mayors, Prime Ministers and Chancellors held firm in the face of budgetary pressures, knowing that the benefits of the project would come after they left office while the disruption and cost was incurred on their watches. This is the root of the infrastructure conundrum: National and local politicians make the investment and take the upheaval today, and their successors (perhaps of another political hue) get to cut the opening ribbon and keep the country moving years and decades later.
The National Infrastructure Commission, with its team of seasoned industry professionals and visionary politicians, has an opportunity to provide an overarching, constant and long-term perspective. They can be the infrastructure champion - joining up the needs, ambition and business cases into the nationwide plan that has been lacking in the past.
The trans-Pennine corridor and Crossrail 2 will benefit from this new holistic approach, and a longer-term strategy will provide clarity and certainty for the industry itself, enabling contractors, the supply chain, programme managers, manufacturers and design firms to plan accordingly and invest in the people, innovation and resources they need for the future. And in so doing, benefit the UK economy.
I hope the NIC will look at the lessons of the past (good and bad), and listen to people who can share their experience and knowledge across the spectrum of infrastructure projects, effective delivery structures, ethical procurement and innovation. Across the country there is a committed, skilled and increasingly diverse workforce quietly getting on with their jobs to maintain and upgrade our country’s infrastructure. We can collectively learn from their achievements to successfully deliver the projects of tomorrow to support and inspire future generations.
