Andrew Adonis: Victorian spirit is a blueprint for building future

Telford and Adam Smith, who noted in the Wealth of Nations that “good roads, canals, and navigable rivers are the greatest of all improvements,” were, in effect, the father and godfather of modern infrastructure planning.

In the following generation, the Victorians took infrastructure construction to the highest level hitherto known. Just think of the revolution brought about, in barely two decades, by the creation of the Victorian railways.

Add to that Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s amazing sewerage system in London, then the largest city in the world, and the great national endowment of parks, libraries, schools, hospitals, bridges, paved roads, street lighting, trams and gas and water systems pioneered by civic leaders of the calibre of Joseph Chamberlain in Birmingham, and it was indeed a remarkable British-led civilisation.

Alas, in the 20th century we lost some of the knack for large scale infrastructure planning. It wasn’t as bad as sometimes painted. After the Second World War, the heirs of Telford built today’s motorways, airports, energy and telecoms systems, millions of new homes and more than 30 new towns or major urban extensions.

The most important of these new urban extensions was the creation of a wholly new, large and successful commercial district in the derelict east London docklands.

Since the Millennium, there have been more exemplary successes. The Olympics. HS1. St Pancras. King’s Cross. The Manchester tram system. London Overground. Heathrow Terminals 2 and 5. The biggest of them all, Crossrail, the new East-West London line adding 10 per cent to London’s public transport capacity, opens next year.

These are great successes. But the record has been patchy, in four respects.

First, some sectors have lagged badly. In particular, the quality of mobile and broadband coverage is well below international high performers.

Second, London and the South-East have been the main beneficiaries. Population growth partly explains and justifies this. I don’t subscribe to the ‘less London means more Hull and Liverpool’ school of thinking. Less London, in today’s globalising economy, would probably mean more Los Angeles, Singapore, Sydney and Shanghai. But with striking exceptions – like the Manchester trams and the rebuilding of Birmingham New Street – transformational infrastructure hasn’t benefited the UK’s regions and nations beyond the South-East to the same degree.

Third, local infrastructure has been subject to too little investment – again, particularly outside London, where the local government tax base has been getting relatively weaker.

And finally, these last two areas – local investment and investment beyond the South-East – have particularly suffered from the fourth weakness: stop-go national infrastructure spending, and a long-running level of national capital investment well below the average for the developed western world. The erosion of the infrastructure skills base, and poor design and cost control, have not helped.

Our task, as a country, is to put right these weaknesses. To regain the spirit of the Victorians. The National Infrastructure Commission was set up to focus on improving infrastructure planning and quality, and addressing these four weaknesses will be of the highest priority in our work.

In his excellent Lord Mayor’s speech last week, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, made this part of what he called a ‘jobs first’ approach to Brexit and the next decade.

“We need to explain again how stronger growth must be delivered through rising productivity,” he said. He went on: “That means more trade, not less... it also means addressing the domestic weaknesses that have plagued us: under-investment, both public and private; inadequate skills; and regional disparities.”

The National Infrastructure Commission has already reported on a number of specific priorities, including on next-generation mobile communications, smart energy systems and infrastructure for the Northern Powerhouse.

In the context of Brexit and a hung parliament, there is deep business uncertainty about national investment and it is essential that Government and Parliament takes a decisive lead to show that Britain is open for business and can reclaim the spirit of the Victorians.

Together, we can be as great as the Victorians. But only if we adopt the mentality of Queen Victoria herself, who memorably remarked: “We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.”

Andrew Adonis is chairman of the National Infrastructure Commision. This is an edited version of the peer’s Reclaiming the Victorian Spirit speech.