Newcastle University

National and local policy frameworks should be realigned to focus on delivering wider societal benefits and to enable local infrastructure business models to emerge that can provide local solutions that are complementary with mainstream systems.

A review of infrastructure business models shows that alternative institutional forms of organisation and modes of operation are evident where infrastructure services are supplied by a range of actors – such as local authorities, social enterprises or community groups – often working together and through new institutional arrangements.^[25*] These local infrastructure business models could deliver additional and wider benefits, but they face constraints which limit their wider uptake.^[19*,26*]

Initial iBUILD research has focused on the energy sector, with empirical case studies examining social enterprise, community and municipal energy companies in the UK and internationally. Ongoing work is extending this into other infrastructure sectors. UK energy business models, for example, operate in a privatised and liberalised, but highly regulated, environment. Postprivatisation, energy policy and the regulatory system have evolved around the mainstream mode of operation, which is profit-oriented, throughput-based and large-scale.^[27] Local actors are often motivated to achieve goals other than profit generation, such as increased individual and community health and wellbeing through affordable warmth and better air quality. However, current UK regulation views markets and competition as the most effective way of meeting the needs of society. Furthermore, local actors have not played a role in energy governance, beyond spatial planning, since the 1940s. This institutional lock-in is created and reinforced by historical regulatory constraints on the role of local actors and limits innovation. Combined with limited resources and in-house knowledge, there is often insufficient capacity amongst local actors to engage with complex decision processes and this limits the number of stakeholders willing or able to become involved in infrastructure planning and development.^[28*]