The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is calling on UK government to protect infrastructure spending as it sets out its recommendations ahead of November’s Spending Review .
The Spending Review will establish limits on the government expenditure, setting out what the public can expect from its investment. As the voice of civil engineering, ICE’s submission offers informed recommendations to government on infrastructure spending.
The submission welcomes the government’s commitment to invest £100 billion in infrastructure over the next 5 years, placing it at the heart of its economic strategy but cautions against spending cuts that offer short term advantage, but undermine UK infrastructure’s contribution to long term prosperity, productivity and resilience.
ICE said that the six year £2.3 billion investment plan for flood defenses should be protected to build the UK’s resilience to flooding and ensure that communities, business, transport networks and power supply do not suffer the same catastrophic effects.
The cost to the economy from the 2013-14 floods was estimated at £1.1 billion, with damaging impacts on national productivity.
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