The government has announced the biggest ever National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, worth more than £500 billion to the private planned and public investment over this Parliament and beyond. Published by the government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority, the pipeline is up by £37 billion in comparison with the March document
The main contractor on the £44 million York Community Stadium, ISG, has pulled out after major delays to the project. The council is spearheading the 8,000 seat scheme and in July this year said that delays to signing contracts would push the completion date back into 2017. ISG and its
The government has announced the biggest ever National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, worth more than £500 billion to the private planned and public investment over this Parliament and beyond. Published by the government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority, the pipeline is up by £37 billion in comparison with the March document and will include 20 new schemes, such as the Cambridge to Oxford Expressway. The pipeline will help to deliver important local schemes throughout the UK, including housing, flood defence, broadband and transport. It contains: More than £500bn of planned investment, with more than £300bn of this to be invested by 2020/21; More than 720 projects and programmes across transport, housing and digital to fire up the nation’s infrastructure. The pipeline will include major schemes including the Thames Tideway Tunnel, the rollout of smart meters, and upgrading the A14. The idea behind the pipeline is that it provides a single source of data for both government and the private sector, giving greater certainty for investors and suppliers. The government claims that today’s pipeline is the largest and most comprehensive ever. However, it relies on private finance to make up more than half of the pipeline to 2020/21. The publication of the pipeline has come soon after the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement announcement of the new £23 billion National Productivity Investment Fund. The new fund will include infrastructure investments of over £2.6 billion to improve transport networks; a multi-million pound package to accelerate the future of broadband; and £7.2bn to support the construction of new homes. The government has also today published a new funding and finance supplement to help attract further private sector investment into some of the UK’s most important infrastructure projects. Chief executive of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), Tony Meggs, said: “Creating the IPA has enabled us to produce a more comprehensive pipeline. Having the visibility and certainty of a pipeline of construction and infrastructure investment allows industry to invest strategically for the market, not just tactically for the project.”
The main contractor on the £44 million York Community Stadium, ISG, has pulled out after major delays to the project. The council is spearheading the 8,000 seat scheme and in July this year said that delays to signing contracts would push the completion date back into 2017. ISG and its subcontractors were initially due to start working on the scheme in August this year and were set to complete the job in 62 weeks, however it now seems that the work will not start at all. An ISG spokesperson said that delays relating to the Judicial Review and rising cost pressures have forced them to pull out of the scheme, which is being led by leisure operator GLL. In October last year, cinema chain Vue launched a legal challenge against the stadium regarding plans for a 13 screen cinema which will be part of the project. The Vue has a 12-screen cinema down the road at Clifton Moor. Seven months prior to this, a review forced York City Council into investing a further £7 million into the initial £37 million project. A spokesperson for ISG explained: “We’ve worked for over two years, alongside our consortium partners, to realise the vision for a new community stadium at York, and successfully delivered the enabling package for the scheme in late 2015. “Our commitment to the stadium has never been in question and we have worked diligently to explore every opportunity to bring the scheme to site, however with further delays caused by the Judicial Review and increasing cost pressures, we’ve been unable to reach a consensus for the next phase of the project. We will continue to support our partners as they seek an alternative contractor.” The York Community Stadium will be home to the city’s professional football team York City FC and rugby league club the York City Knights.