Unlocking the potential of UK infrastructure – a pathway to growth and sustainability
Investment in infrastructure is critical to achieving the Government’s missions of economic growth, housing, clean energy and net zero, says Paul Reilly, WSP’s new UK and Ireland President & Managing Director, in an interview with The House
From state-of-the-art transportation networks to cutting-edge green energy systems, the UK is a world leader in delivering infrastructure.
“We should be very proud of our capabilities and the fact that we do so many things well,” says Paul Reilly, the new President and Managing Director for the UK and Ireland of WSP, one of the world’s leading professional services firms.
“Projects such as the Elizabeth Line, or the Thames Tideway Tunnel, which has been ten years in the construction and is going to clean up the River Thames, are a fantastic achievement. We have also been very successful with our offshore wind programme, which is delivering a significant amount of gigawatts of clean power. That’s all happened in Britain, led through the British planning system and delivered by and large by British engineers.”
WSP employs 11,000 people in the UK and Ireland, providing engineering, design and consulting services across a vast range of sectors.
“We work across all major infrastructure sectors – nuclear, thermal energy, coastal protection, the water sector and more,” says Reilly. “We’re spread across the whole of the UK and Ireland, supporting communities in delivering better outcomes and better lives for people.”
“We go all the way from small-scale interventions, such as helping children get to school more safely or cleaning up the air quality in towns and cities, to major projects where we’re working to support green steel production in multi-billion pound facilities, or working on Old Oak Common in support of HS2.”
He firmly believes that investment in delivering good infrastructure is critical to achieving the Government’s missions of economic growth, housing, improved public services, clean energy and net zero delivery. Energy security, for example, is crucial – not only for the country to be successful and deliver GDP growth but also to provide better health, better education and better homes, all of which need to be powered.
“It will benefit people and communities and we’re focused on it,” he says. “It’s absolutely right that the Government should ask the private sector to step up on infrastructure delivery. But equally it’s right that the private sector should ask the Government to have its back and support that delivery as well as it possibly can through better policy making, clearer incentives for infrastructure investors and promoters and smarter, faster planning permissions.”
There have undoubtedly been challenges in delivering UK infrastructure in recent years – largely due to planning delays, rising costs, supply chain issues and skills shortages – and he says that these must be addressed.
“If we want to keep up the momentum which has been growing for good infrastructure delivery then we need to smarten and speed-up aspects of the consenting process. National Planning Policy Framework reforms and wider changes under the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill are welcome developments, which hopefully will enable us to accelerate the infrastructure and homes we need to deliver and to fast-track critical infrastructure such as windfarms, power plants, and major road and rail projects.”
He also sees the Government’s planned 10-year Infrastructure Strategy and the creation of new bodies such as the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) and the National Wealth Fund as “positive” and is confident that these will drive change and act as a catalyst for collaboration, innovation and investment certainty.
While infrastructure delivery supports immediate economic growth, jobs and carbon-cutting commitments, WSP is also committed to delivering measurable social impact through its projects and designs by maximising the broader societal and environmental advantages of good infrastructure. And between 2022-2023 the company also delivered more than £227m of additional social value through practices like spending with SMEs in local areas, encouraging WSP employees to volunteer in the community, hiring apprentices, wellbeing programmes etc. “Where an area is impacted by a major project such as a new pipeline or a new transmission distribution network it’s important that the local community should benefit directly as well as indirectly,” he says. “In every project we do now we look to deliver social value for those who are affected by it.”
Every WSP employee gets two paid volunteering days per year, when they volunteer for environmental and community initiatives. Mr Reilly himself has volunteered in schools, speaking to young people about engineering as a career and dispelling the myth that it’s all about “hard hats and big, yellow machinery”. His firm recruits more than 350 early careers professionals a year and he say that “there has never been a more exciting time to be a young engineer”.
He is certain that the sector will continue to play a major role in helping Britain “to become healthier, stronger and more economically powerful” in the coming years.
“I think this Government is really listening but when we’re delivering a major project the thing that’s most important all the way through is the need for clarity about the mission and that everybody’s on board. We hope the Government will continue to be proactive in this space and will continue to communicate with people and communities about what we’re trying to achieve and why. Everyone has a part to play in delivery.”
“If we want to grow as a country we need to build houses for people, we need power, we need water and we need clean air. All of this takes effort and design and there will be challenges along the way. The Government must support the private sector to rise up against those challenges and make it easier for key infrastructure to be delivered.”
“Delivering good infrastructure, decarbonising our energy and transport systems, sorting out the housing crisis and cleaning up our waterways – these are challenges that everyone wants to see met and WSP is very proud to be playing a key role alongside our clients and partners across the industry in making it all happen.”
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