9th September 2026
Britain has a problem.
We know that we need new railways, electricity networks, housing, roads and other major infrastructure. We know that much of it is urgently required.
But getting major projects from the drawing board to completion can take an extraordinary length of time.
Look at HS2.
The high-speed railway was first formally proposed in 2010, with the first phase originally expected to open in 2026.
That didn't happen.
The latest Government figures put the opening of the first section between London and Birmingham between 2036 and 2039 — roughly a quarter of a century after the project was first proposed.
The projected cost of the wider programme has also risen dramatically, with the Government now estimating between £87.7 billion and £102.7 billion.
Crossrail provides another example.
The project eventually opened as the Elizabeth line in 2022, but the full service was delivered three and a half years later than originally planned.
Hinkley Point C provides another striking comparison. Planning and development began in 2008 and construction started in 2016. Completion is now expected in the latter part of this decade.
None of this means these projects are unnecessary.
Quite the opposite. They are major pieces of infrastructure that can deliver enormous benefits.
But it does raise a question:
Why does it take Britain so long to make decisions and deliver major infrastructure?
Perhaps the most dramatic comparison comes from China.
China has built infrastructure on a scale that is difficult to comprehend.
The country's high-speed rail network has expanded from virtually nothing at the beginning of this century to tens of thousands of kilometres.
Major bridges, airports, dams, metros, roads and power infrastructure have been built at extraordinary speed.
Consider the Three Gorges Project.
The scheme had been debated and researched for decades, but once the Chinese government formally approved it in 1992, construction began in 1994.
The main dam was completed in 2006 and the wider project reached substantial completion in 2009.
It involved enormous engineering challenges and the relocation of more than a million people.
It is also important to acknowledge that this was not a project that simply appeared overnight. The Three Gorges scheme had decades of planning, research and debate behind it.
But once the political decision was made, China was able to mobilise huge amounts of labour, finance, land and engineering capacity behind the project.
That is the crucial difference.
China's system allows the state to make strategic decisions and then align different parts of government behind them.
Land acquisition can be handled centrally or provincially. Infrastructure can be designated as a national priority. Financing can be mobilised. Construction can proceed on a scale that would be extremely difficult to replicate in Britain.
The result can be spectacular.
But there is another side to this.
The ability to build quickly comes partly from the fact that Chinese citizens and communities do not have the same ability to challenge major infrastructure projects as people in Britain.
A government that can acquire land and override local opposition can obviously build faster than one which has to negotiate with every affected community and work through multiple layers of environmental and planning scrutiny.
That isn't necessarily a model Britain should copy.
Indeed, many of the safeguards in Britain's planning system exist precisely because we decided that communities, landowners and the environment should have greater protection.
But that leaves Britain with a difficult dilemma.
We want the safeguards of a modern democracy and the speed of a country capable of mobilising infrastructure on a national scale.
Can we have both?
Perhaps we can.
The answer may not be to weaken environmental protection or remove the right to object. Instead, it could mean redesigning the process so that decisions are made much earlier and much more clearly.
For example, governments could establish the strategic need for a project before detailed routes are developed.
Environmental investigations could begin earlier.
Related infrastructure projects could be assessed together rather than separately.
There could be firm deadlines for consultations and inquiries.
And once a project has been approved, there could be much greater certainty that construction will actually proceed.
This is particularly relevant to Britain's electricity grid.
Scotland is expected to require enormous amounts of new transmission infrastructure as renewable generation expands.
Projects such as the proposed Spittal–Loch Buidhe–Beauly 400kV connection in the Highlands illustrate the challenge.
There is a national argument for strengthening the electricity grid.
But individual projects still have to negotiate environmental impacts, landscape concerns, objections, public inquiries and ministerial decisions.
That process has value.
The question is whether it can be made substantially faster without sacrificing the things it was designed to protect.
The Victorians offer another interesting comparison.
They transformed Britain with railways, canals and engineering projects because Parliament could make a decision and give companies the powers necessary to build.
China demonstrates a modern version of the same principle on a vastly larger scale.
Britain today has chosen a different model — one based on extensive consultation, environmental protection and multiple layers of scrutiny.
Perhaps the real lesson from China is therefore not that Britain should copy the Chinese system.
It is that speed is itself a policy choice.
If a government genuinely regards a railway, powerline or energy project as nationally essential, it needs a system capable of moving that project from political decision to construction within a predictable timeframe.
At present, Britain often seems to have the money, the engineers and the technology — but struggles to make the decision.
And that may ultimately be the most expensive delay of all.
The challenge for Britain is to find a way of keeping democratic accountability and environmental protection while becoming much better at actually getting things built.
Because the rest of the world isn't standing still.
While Britain debates how to build its infrastructure, countries such as China are demonstrating just how quickly infrastructure can be delivered when a state decides that something is a national priority.
The question is not whether Britain should become China.
It is whether Britain can become better at making decisions.
The economic cost of taking too long
There is another part of this debate that is often overlooked: what does delay itself cost?
It is entirely reasonable for local communities to object to major developments. Environmental organisations have a legitimate role in challenging projects that could cause permanent damage. Landowners and residents should be able to have their concerns heard.
But the planning process also has an economic cost.
A project that takes five years longer than expected is not simply a project that takes five years longer to build. During those five years, developers may have to continue paying professional fees, financing costs and other expenses. Construction costs can rise, interest rates can change and equipment and materials can become more expensive.
Some projects may eventually become too expensive to proceed.
And that has consequences beyond the developer.
A delayed factory means delayed jobs. A delayed housing development means fewer homes. A delayed railway means people wait longer for better transport. A delayed electricity connection can mean that a renewable energy project cannot connect to the grid and start generating power.
There is therefore an argument that economic consequences should form a much more explicit part of the planning equation.
We are accustomed to asking what environmental damage a project might cause. We ask about landscape, wildlife, noise, traffic and the effect on communities.
But perhaps we should also be asking:
What is the economic cost of not building it — or of taking another five or ten years to decide?
That does not mean putting a price on everything and allowing economic benefits to automatically override environmental concerns.
Nor does it mean removing the right of communities to object.
It means recognising that delay has consequences too.
For ordinary people, those consequences can be very tangible.
They can mean fewer jobs, fewer homes, higher energy costs, poorer transport links and less investment in the local economy.
There is also a question of who bears the cost.
A small community affected by a new powerline may quite reasonably feel that it is being asked to carry the local environmental burden for a national benefit.
But the opposite question is also worth asking: who pays when nationally important infrastructure is delayed?
Ultimately, it is likely to be businesses, consumers and taxpayers.
That is why the debate over planning reform should perhaps move away from the simplistic argument that one side is "pro-development" and the other is "anti-development".
Most people want both a healthy environment and a prosperous economy.
The difficult question is how to create a system that can protect the environment, listen to communities and still make decisions quickly enough for investment to happen.
If Britain is going to build the infrastructure it says it needs, the economic cost of delay cannot remain an afterthought.
Three Gorges Project
HS2
Crossrail