Recommendation 13

Establish full-scale urban demonstrator sites for integrated infrastructure planning and testing of innovative infrastructure business models.

There are a number of opportunities to obtain enhanced benefits and savings from infrastructure through the implementation of alternative sustainable business models. The first 18 months of the iBUILD programme have already produced a number of policy relevant recommendations discussed in this document. Many more evidence-based recommendations for the policy, industrial and financial sectors are expected as the research programme further matures.

It is clear that business models need to take a longer-term view, balancing capital funding and finance over the full lifecycle to achieve a sustainable and high quality delivery of service. The fragmented and siloed nature of local infrastructure is currently inefficient; coordinating the delivery of multiple infrastructure sectors across and between scales creates the potential to reduce costs, create wider societal plans and economic benefits and environmental improvements. An integrated approach to infrastructure delivery, multiple assets and services can be managed as a ‘bundle’ and additions to these infrastructures can be incorporated within the package of business models. However, this will require implementation of more flexible and agile regulation and legislation to facilitate a range of business model structures, combinations of assets and mechanisms for value creation. This is not just wishful thinking: alternative approaches are already emerging, as demonstrated by some of the examples briefly introduced throughout this report from an initial review of UK and international infrastructure business models.[25*]

Central to the iBUILD programme is the development and coordination of a number of place-based case studies – many of which are cited within this document – that are enabling us to integrate the multi-disciplinary expertise from across the research team and explore the practicalities of implementing new approaches on applied problems. However, to better promote an integrated approach to local infrastructure delivery, more substantial demonstrator initiatives should be established. New-towns, including eco-towns, could be established using conventional and alternative business models that incorporate social, economic and environmental needs; whilst an established urban area could be challenged to weave alternative ways of infrastructure delivery into its fabric. These test sites would become an essential part of a coordinated set of national facilities for experimentation, modelling and simulation for the advance of infrastructure research.