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79,197 pages for 3.1 miles of track. Those are the number of pages that the North Somerset Council completed for their railway planning application for, yes, a mere 3.1 miles of track. Even still, the project might not even go ahead.
This planning application aimed to re-open the track that once connected Portishead, near Bristol, to the wider National Rail network which had been closed after the infamous ‘Beeching cuts’ of the 1960s which slashed train services across the country. The planned reopening is indicative of all the clear signs that the planning system is not working at all: an unnecessarily long application, including 17,912 pages on the environment and 215 pages on newts, 3 years to get approval by the transport secretary, not to mention £32 million spent on the application alone so far. A reminder that this is just for a little more than 3 miles of track.
This is not to understate the importance of proper and thorough planning. However, if the United Kingdom is to ensure its citizenry maintains an adequate standard of living and wishes to remain a competitive force in international affairs, there must be change.
There are a plethora of projects across the country that could create an elevated, highly connected United Kingdom. The High Speed 2 (HS2) project is one of these, designed to promote job growth, connectivity, and regional development between London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds through a high-speed railway network. Yet, the project has become emblematic of the failure of planning policy to provide a streamlined, disciplined, and economical approach to such vital development. The government axed plans for the railway to extend to Leeds in 2021 and to Manchester in 2023. Now, the slimmed project will only serve trains between London and Birmingham. Not only is this a travesty for the benefits that an England-wide high-speed railway would have brought, but the cancelled legs have already cost the government over £1.2 billion.
It is clear that the planning system is unfit for purpose, as it has become a blackhole for both time and money. Much of the concern for HS2 was because of local opposition to the projects, sometimes labelled as “NIMBYism” (‘Not In My Backyard’). If the United Kingdom had such an averse approach to planning policy during the Great Railway Mania of the early 1800s, the country never would have developed such a strong railway system that allowed Britain to be the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution and an innovative force worldwide.
For an in depth analysis as to why HS2 failed, check out this video
Some will rightfully ask whether such innovative measures are possible today, and insist that slow renewal is the natural order of things, given that we emphasise safety and environmental mitigation. However, the ways in which other countries have eclipsed the United Kingdom with regards to infrastructure shows this challenge can be overcome.
One analysis found that the average cost-per-mile of the 10 most expensive rail projects in Britain was £397 million, compared to £221 million for France. This backs up the way this article opened about the Portishead railway extension - Britain is simply ineffective in carrying out infrastructure projects. Even when the country’s projects are considered successful, they are still wildly expensive. For comparison, utilising constant currency values, London’s popular Elizabeth Line, which opened in 2022 and has been praised for cutting journey times and improving connectivity, cost $888.50 million per kilometre, whereas a similar project in Madrid, Eje Transversal, cost just $94.1 million per kilometre.
Indeed, part of this difference could be explained by the culture of NIMBYism in the U.K., which means that local opposition inevitably heightens costs and delays projects through government and court appeals. The U.K’s system has been cited as having far too many veto players for it to work effectively- as these groups are able to increase costs through demanding more consultations, surveying, or a re-completion of the planning application to a point where the project’s costs skyrocket.
One of the best examples of this disparity is how in 2000, the Norwegian government spent £140 million on the world's longest tunnel for a road between Oslo and Bergen. Comparatively, the U.K. has spent more than double that on the planning application for the Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex - the actual building of the crossing will likely be more than £9 billion. This is a difference that cannot be justifiably dismissed.
In the case of the Lower Thames Crossing, plenty of proposals have been put forward as to how to cut these costs. Shortening examination periods and stream-lining pre-application costs are two ways that may help. Ultimately, the culture of NIMBYism that has developed must be put aside in order for genuine progress to be made.
It cannot be understated the importance of infrastructure for maintaining and expanding Britain’s position in the international order. China’s focus on infrastructure projects through their Belt and Road Initiative recognises that their path to power lies in the cities. This is a case in point for why the United Kingdom must try harder. China’s ascendancy threatens the Western-imposed order, as Xi Jinping continues his infrastructural quests through projects, directing money and influence in Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Britain must catch up to its European counterparts and offer a vision for infrastructural renewal that can compete in the 21st century, putting behind a system that makes opening 3.1 miles of railway a tough task.
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