This afternoon, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered his highly anticipated one year Spending Review in Parliament. As part of this, he also announced details of the Government’s Infrastructure Strategy.

While many of the announcements were previously trialled in the media last weekend, a number were new, including the establishment of a £7.1 billion new homes fund and a £4 billion levelling-up fund. The latter seems to have been influenced by the principles of the Construction Leadership Council’s proposals for a new local infrastructure fund to accelerate growth and recovery that ACE has been championing. Added to this were details on changing the rules in the Green Book, the establishment of a UK Infrastructure Bank and an intra-city transport settlement, which devolves decision-making in this area.

In addition, he outlined details of direct business support which have been available to members

To help you digest the key announcements, we have created an exclusive member-only briefing which you can download below.

Finally, ACE vice chair Dave Beddell (ACEOM) has written an opinion piece for Infrastructure Intelligence on how these announcements are putting the building blocks in place for levelling-up, while Hannah Vickers explored the symbolic gesture to kickstart a shift in culture.

Hannah Vickers also provided an immediate response to the announcement:

🗣️ACE's @HannahVickers4 provides an immediate reaction to @RishiSunak's #SR20 and the publication of the #NationalInfrastructureStrategy.

More here: https://t.co/kkEPaoMD4f pic.twitter.com/nc37PuMxd7

— ACE - Association for Consultancy and Engineering (@ACE_Updates) November 25, 2020

ACE's comments were picked up by chief business correspondent Alastair Osborne in The Times, as well as sector media including: New Civil Engineer (NCE), Construction Index, Inside Housing, Housing Today, Infrastructure Intelligence, New Start Magazine, Construction Plant News, and Planning Resource.

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