Property Chiefs Debate Infrastructure Charging

Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation, says that transport infrastructure is the most significant barrier to progress for those concerned with development and regeneration.

As Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation, put it in her introduction to the Social Market Foundation's report on the role of property in financing infrastructure, for those concerned with development and regeneration, transport infrastructure often appears to be the most significant barrier to progress.

The barrier is financial rather than physical: with Crossrail the engineers have already prepared their construction schedule in outline for driving the new railway under Central London and beyond to Stratford and the Isle of Dogs.

But so far no-one seems to have come up with a satisfactory answer to the problem of financing not only this £10 billion transport megaproject but the many other infrastructure projects essential to the efficient functioning and growth of the capital city.

This is a task quite beyond the resources of the local authorities responsible for carrying them out.

It is however encouraging to hear that, though the Social Market Foundation has not itself offered any pointers to the best way of bridging the infrastructure gap, the property industry is more than willing to engage in a serious and sensible debate about how this barrier to successful development and regeneration can be surmounted and the quality of life improved.

The debate however showed that there is some way to go before a resolution can be found and meanwhile the financing issue remains as urgent as ever.

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