{"id":2118359,"date":"2026-10-20T06:00:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T05:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/westmidlands\/?p=2118359"},"modified":"2026-10-22T09:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T08:43:15","slug":"analysis-planning-to-fail-uk-infrastructure-system-must-learn-from-global-peers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/westmidlands\/news\/2118359-analysis-planning-to-fail-uk-infrastructure-system-must-learn-from-global-peers","title":{"rendered":"Planning to fail – UK infrastructure system must learn from global peers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK is a global joke for its woeful record on large project delivery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Multibillion-pound schemes that all too often begin as a prestigious national symbol of technological and innovative leadership become mired in years of delays and spiralling budgets.<\/span><\/p>\n

HS2 anyone?<\/span><\/p>\n

Originally envisioned to connect London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds with high-speed rail, the project has suffered continuous scale-backs and multi-year delays.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

HS2<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

The eastern leg to Leeds was scrapped in 2021, followed by the Manchester leg in 2023 and the Birmingham-to-Crewe leg was delayed, pushing full completion and core connectivity decades out while costs ballooned from initial estimates of around \u00a337.5-\u00a350bn to more than \u00a3100bn.<\/span><\/p>\n

A national scandal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the ongoing Hinckley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset. This massive low-carbon structure has faced repeated timetable pushes. Completion dates have slipped by several years, and projected costs have escalated significantly from an original estimate of around \u00a318bn to more than \u00a346bn.<\/span><\/p>\n

To obtain planning approval, Hinkley Point C had to agree to spend \u00a3700m on fish protection measures to mitigate its environmental impact, equivalent to 1.5% of the total project costs.<\/span><\/p>\n

These measures will save fish equivalent to the annual catch of a small fishing vessel and less than one salmon per year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even the UK\u2019s flagship aviation success, the supersonic Concorde aircraft, was fraught with recurring problems. Conceived in the 1960s an initial budget estimate of around \u00a370m ballooned to between \u00a31.5bn and \u00a32.1 billion by the time the aircraft entered service in 1976.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bane of major UK infrastructure development is almost always red tape, exacerbated by slow planning processes, legal and judicial challenges, shifting political priorities and poor early cost estimates.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, invariably, central to most delays are the nation\u2019s antiquated planning processes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Labour government\u2019s flagship housebuilding target is to deliver 1.5 million net new dwellings in England over the five-year parliamentary term – by summer 2029 at the latest – which averages out to 300,000 homes a year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mandatory housing targets for local councils have been reinstated and increased to a combined total of 370,000 homes a year to help pull progress toward the national goal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ministers, including Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, have acknowledged that hitting the full 1.5 million target is a “really difficult stretch target” facing economic headwinds, rising material costs, and a slow-moving supply chain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Independent watchdogs and industry groups, such as the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Home Builders Federation, have expressed scepticism that the total will be reached in full without a dramatic late term surge, projecting final totals closer to 1.3 million to 1.49 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

New homes<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Keir Starmer\u2019s government targeted a shake-up of the planning system to eradicate \u2018Nimbyism\u2019 and speed-up processes, a stance also embraced by the Burnham regime.<\/span><\/p>\n

New research by the Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), a specialist insurer of defined benefit pension schemes, has suggested the UK needs to learn from proven successful systems, in this case, Singapore.<\/span><\/p>\n

PIC calls for major regional cities, such as Manchester and Birmingham, as well as other mayoralties, to adopt the Singapore model, where faster approvals could help unlock stalled redevelopment, housing, and infrastructure projects by fast-tracking planning approvals, with a more streamlined planning process.<\/span><\/p>\n

It recommends that this process could then be trialled at city level, allowing Manchester, Birmingham, other mayoralties, and development corporations to pilot a Singapore-style planning process.<\/span><\/p>\n

For directly comparable planning data, Singapore completes construction permit approvals around 59% faster than the UK, a difference that, if applied to the UK’s planning and consent stage, equates to saving roughly 10.5 months per project and around \u00a318,167 saved per unit for homes currently in the planning system, or \u00a36.4bn in total,<\/span>\u00a0based on an average construction cost of \u00a3206,250 per home.<\/span><\/p>\n

PIC says the new Burnham Government should now consider giving ambitious city regions the tools to test faster planning approvals, borrow the best policy approaches from other countries and prove that regulatory reform can deliver practical redevelopment on the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n

Public land holdings in those city regions should be audited and, where possible, land owned by different public bodies should be combined to unlock larger developments – replicating some of the benefits of Singapore’s predominantly government-owned land model.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cities such as Manchester and Birmingham have the demand, transport links, brownfield sites and institutional investment appetite to support major new housing and infrastructure schemes, but too many projects are delayed or made unviable by uncertainty at the start of the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Singapore operates a streamlined, effective planning system under constraints like major British cities – limited land and high labour and materials costs.<\/span><\/p>\n

And taking the proposed model further PIC further recommends that every UK regulator is benchmarked against its best peers globally.<\/span><\/p>\n

This would allow them to fast-track services and products that these foreign regulators have already approved.<\/span><\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s current risk-averse regulatory system is loading avoidable cost and delay onto the UK economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

HM Treasury estimates there are more than 100 bodies involved in UK regulation with overlapping mandates.<\/span><\/p>\n

They have little incentive to deregulate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under PIC’s proposal, each UK regulator would nominate one or more world leading \u2018peer regulators\u2019, selected as best-in-class against independent criteria.<\/span><\/p>\n

UK regulators would track those peers’ decisions and report quarterly on how their, and the UK\u2019s, approaches compare.<\/span><\/p>\n

For areas where no equivalent foreign regulator exists, PIC suggests questioning whether the UK needs that regulator at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Critically, PIC calls for a fast-track approval process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where a trusted peer regulator has already approved a product or service, it should be considered for near-automatic sign-off in the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is already in place with highly sensitive sectors, through the MHRA’s (<\/span>Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) <\/span>International Recognition Procedure for medicines and a recent memorandum of understanding between the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such a model would also change regulators’ incentives by giving them cover to back pro-growth decisions by pointing to the approach of the best regulators in the world, and shifting the debate from \u201csomething must be done\u201d, to \u201cwhy are other countries doing this better?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Hayley Rees<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Hayley Rees, PIC Capital managing director, said: \u201cAs a long term investor, PIC wants to fund the energy, housing, and infrastructure Britain needs, but there are not enough viable projects coming through.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe quickest way to show reform works is to start in places like Manchester and Birmingham, where redevelopment can support local growth and create visible benefits for communities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She added: \u201cPlanning delays and the huge costs related to them are a major barrier.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe should learn from what works in countries such as Singapore and help deliver a pipeline of projects that allow more investment in the infrastructure the country needs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The pension risk transfer (PRT) market, of which PIC is a leading player, is expected to take on up to \u00a3600bn of defined benefit pension scheme assets over the next decade, with around \u00a3200bn of this available for UK infrastructure investment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PIC is a long term investor in UK infrastructure because these assets provide the secure, long term cashflows needed to match payments to PIC\u2019s policyholders over coming decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

PIC has invested \u00a315bn in UK housing and infrastructure to date.<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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