Government leaders should consult the infrastructure industry before cancelling major projects, Amey managing director for consulting Colin Wood has said.
Speaking at a Labour Party Conference fringe event, Wood said early engagement could give contractors and consultants the opportunity to propose alternatives to terminating major civils programmes.
“Before a decision is made to cancel or stop a project, involve industry because industry is good at solving those sorts of problems,” he said.
“Maybe there’s a conversation that needs to be had about how we can deliver a project in front of us which is cheaper and faster but still delivers some benefits as intended.”
Lessons from HS2
Wood cited HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail as examples of major schemes facing decisions about their future.
Former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak cancelled the Birmingham-Manchester section of HS2 in October 2023. Andy Burnham, who became Labour prime minister in July, has since expressed a desire to reinstate the northern leg to Manchester.
The Railway Industry Association said the cancellation had been made “without any consultation”. Mark Reynolds, chief executive of Mace Group and co-chair of the Construction Leadership Council, later warned that the government’s failure to deliver HS2 in full would have “a chilling effect on the UK’s construction industry”.
The National Audit Office estimated in 2024 that HS2 would need to spend about £100m remediating works on phase two that had started before the cancellation. HS2 set aside £32.1m in remediation provisions in the year to 31 March 2026, saying most of the provision would be used more than a year later.
Ruth Cadbury, chair of the transport select committee and a fellow panellist, criticised the hybrid bill process used for large projects such as HS2 as a “nightmare”. She said the government intended to use the process for Northern Powerhouse Rail and suggested her committee examine it with the committee responsible for constitutional affairs.
Call for a national aviation strategy
Cadbury and Wood also called for a national aviation strategy following Heathrow Airport’s announcement that it expected a four-year delay to its proposed third runway.
Cadbury said: “This isn’t just about Heathrow, this is about aviation capacity in the UK.”
Wood argued that a national strategy would provide greater certainty for projects and workforce planning.
“[Look at] the volume of engineers, designers, architects and deliverers that we’re going to need in the future, and if there is no coherent strategy for us to align it to, then it is incredibly difficult to either recruit or retain that workforce,” he said.
“The more we can get certainty, the more we can get some consistency, the better we will be at delivering.”
On Heathrow, Wood said the government should define the project’s scope at the outset and identify stakeholders early.
“If we don’t, we’ll be sitting here in 2046, still trying to work out whether there’s another runway needed at Heathrow,” he said.