Government Urged to Follow Example of America
9th September, 2010
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) South West has repeated its call for a National Infrastructure Bank following an announcement from the American president to create one in the United States.
Barack Obama has pledged to invest $50bn into his country’s infrastructure by creating the bank.
ICE is calling for an infrastructure bank as a way of attracting large sums of private funding to pay for essential infrastructure projects, such as road and airport runway building and rail network maintenance.
Richard Fish, Independent Transport Consultant and the South West’s Regional Member of ICE, said: “It is extremely encouraging to see Mr Obama make this bold commitment to rebuild and maintain America’s engineering infrastructure.
“Our government needs to make a similar move. Without robust transport networks, the economy of the far South West is at risk of decline. Strategic transport routes into the region are fragile and often compromised when there is any sort of incident or congestion.
“ICE’s recent State of the Nation report found that our overall transport infrastructure requires ‘significant attention’.
“Whilst we recognise that the government has to make serious spending cutbacks over the coming months, the loss of investment in our transport networks could have far reaching consequences. It is clear that the private sector must take some of the burden for funding infrastructure investment, but without support from government, the right level of financial commitment is unlikely to be forthcoming.”
ENDS
