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CECA director of external affairs Alasdair Reisner said: “While CECA welcomes commitments to an additional £3bn in infrastructure investment post-2014/15, the majority of this period will be after a General Election and is therefore hostage to fortune with any change in government. What we really need is activity on the ground now, and our initial view appears to suggest that there has been no new support in the short term for infrastructure construction.
“Before today’s statement, CECA had called for further details on the UK Guarantees Scheme, which was proposed as a method of unlocking major infrastructure projects. It is disappointing that the Budget contains no new details of projects that are to be funded by this method.
“In more positive news, the Budget document also indicates that the government’s spending review in the summer will offer a long-term view of capital investment. If this is genuinely the case and the government is able to provide a detailed vision of long term spends in our industry, that will be warmly welcomed by contractors who have called for such clarity over many years.
“We also welcome the government’s increasingly rigorous approach to infrastructure delivery, including the creation of an enhanced central cadre of commercial specialists in Infrastructure UK who will be deployed into infrastructure projects across government.
“The Chancellor rightly describes the UK’s infrastructure as the “economic arteries” of the country, and that investment in the sector will “get growth flowing” to every part of the country. CECA believes that the Chancellor has arrived at the correct diagnosis, but has yet to administer a cure.
“CECA believes that there are thousands of smaller infrastructure projects across the country that could be ‘unlocked’, which would spur growth in the economy in the next eighteen months. By delaying significant infrastructure spending until after the next election, the Chancellor has offered a ‘jam tomorrow’ Budget that will do little to boost growth through infrastructure provision before 2015.”
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