Press Release
Grant Thornton UK: 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy 2025 comment
19 Jun 2025
Responding to the release of the UK Government's 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy, Andy Boak, Public Sector Consulting Partner at Grant Thornton UK, said:
“The UK Government’s 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy provides some welcome clarity on where it proposes to provide significant capital for much needed infrastructure upgrades, renewals and improvements. If delivered, these changes will bring significant improvements across the whole of the UK.
“However, the devil is, as always, in the detail. This paper raises questions such as how the pipeline of projects will roll out together with the method of funding and financing, which will be critical to ensuring delivery.
“It’s clear that some form of public-private partnership (PPP) will be essential in delivering the 10-year plan noting that the Government will not reintroduce PFI or PF2 but rather explore the use of a “new PPP model” in limited use cases and increase financial transactions through the use of equity, loans and guarantees. It is positive that the strategy recognises this, but it should be acknowledged and accepted from the outset that private sector investment does not come without a reasonable return.
“The new offering needs to remain attractive to the private sector and reward it for the risk it’s taking to develop these long-term assets, well beyond any political term. Absolute clarity will be needed by the government if it is to have any chance of realising an attractive cost of capital to build out its pipeline.
“Helpfully, these documents provide much needed clarity. It allows investors to contextualise their portfolios, explore adjacent asset classes, and assess the competitive landscape.
“If the forthcoming NISTA Infrastructure Pipeline delivers on its promise, it could be a powerful tool—feeding structured, consistent data into investor scoping and decision-making processes.
“That said, I don’t envy the officials tasked with compiling the Infrastructure Pipeline. The data needs to be right and up to date. NISTA will need to draw on knowledge and data scattered across all the major economic spending departments. It’s a monumental task—but one that, if done well and kept current, will pay dividends for years to come.
“The role of NISTA, and the pace with which the necessary reforms can be rolled out, becomes a critical enabler of these plans. This programme of investments will continue way beyond this initial 10-year term, a plan to deliver is almost as important to provide confidence to the market that these projects will happen and can therefore start to mobilise to play its part.
“This strategy is welcome, but there are many hurdles and questions to be addressed over the coming months. Hopefully my tempered enthusiasm will become marked in the fullness of time and these ambitious plans will be realised.”
