About the London Infrastructure Framework

This year’s London Climate Action Week (LCAW) has been the biggest (and perhaps hottest) yet. It’s a key moment in the year, when eyes nationally and globally turn to London, looking for new ideas and solutions they can apply back home.

I worked with the GLA and London Councils to develop a new approach to strategic infrastructure planning that has delivered replicable lessons for all those interested in unlocking sustainable growth, housing, and climate resilience.

The London Context

At a strategic level, London’s growth is underpinned by its London Plan, which sets out how London will grow and the infrastructure the capital requires to support that growth—spatially and economically.

Earlier this year the Mayor of London and London Councils, working in partnership with London’s boroughs, utilities, industry partners and Transport for London, launched the London Infrastructure Framework (LIF). The LIF serves as a single point of reference for local and regional London government to speak with one voice about infrastructure priorities to government and private investors.

Publishing a LIF was one of the key one-year actions of the London Growth Plan. Across both the London Growth Plan and the next London Plan, three core outcomes were identified as critical to supporting the vision for London’s growth: inclusive growth and productivity; building new homes and maintaining quality of existing homes; and environmental resilience and security. 

To understand what strategic infrastructure could be required to meet London’s growth ambitions, a wide range of public and private sector stakeholders were consulted. They submitted over 400 schemes for consideration, which were scored against their contribution to the three core outcomes. This process resulted in the identification of a pipeline of 51 priority projects across transport, energy, waste, water, flood risk and digital connectivity sectors, determined as critical to London’s future.  

LIF by Numbers

• 150 Schemes including 51 Priority Projects across transport, energy, waste, water, flood risk and digital
• 35 Industry stakeholders engaged through workshops, discussions and steering group meetings
• 32 Boroughs and Sub-regional Partnerships engaged through surveys, meetings and workshops
• 417 projects submitted across boroughs and utility companies
• 183 schemes identified through a comprehensive literature review
• 14 Workshops with sector experts, including industry representatives to validate findings

Process versus Outcome

Part of the value of the LIF is that London government has a single voice on the priority schemes for London’s growth; however, the process of gaining consensus has been as valuable as having the prioritised list itself. Key ways consensus was achieved included:

• setting out a framework for gathering data on projects and sharing that data via launching a LIF Explorer Tool that increases visibility and awareness of all projects featured in the broader LIF Portfolio;
• developing a methodology that is practically workable for assessing diverse projects across scales and sectors to identify prioritised projects in a credible manner; and
• introducing a bundling approach that brings together projects that have a shared purpose, geography, asset type, or delivery model, and allowing related schemes to be considered as part of a coherent package rather than in isolation. 

This process, which is accepted by both political and technical stakeholders, will allow the GLA and London Councils to undertake periodic updates of the LIF to ensure it remains a dynamic document. These updates can leverage the established assessment methodology to consider new projects and can follow the same approval process to retain the technical and political credibility of the LIF. 

Relevance beyond London - why others may want to pursue their own strategic infrastructure framework

UK100 is a network, working across 120+ strategic and local authorities, anchored in the idea that climate action is best delivered bottom up, anchored in communities and local delivery. In an era shaped by the new English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act, where powers and funding are increasingly being devolved to city regions and new strategic authorities, the London Infrastructure Framework provides a replicable blueprint for other regions to articulate and align their infrastructure and growth priorities and mobilise investment.

• Strategic Authority context — leaving local projects local, but aligning SDSs with Growth Plans, all underpinned by a Strategic Infrastructure Framework brings all the strategic-level coordination together at the right scale. 
• It is a forum / lever to open up conversations across the region and across infrastructure sectors to think about how systems depend on one another and how that affects the growth opportunities of places. 
• It gives more insight to strategic and local authorities, infrastructure providers, developers, businesses and communities.

Lessons learned 

• The LIF is more than a technical document; it is a statement on agreed infrastructure priorities across numerous stakeholders. The co-delivery of the LIF by both the GLA and London Councils was critical to ensure political buy-in across local and regional government.
• There are inherent challenges associated with obtaining agreement on what should be a priority amongst project owners who work across varying scales and geographies. What is considered strategic in the context of a local authority may be different from what is considered strategic by a utility company working across a broader region. Having an approved London Plan and Growth Plan in place allowed the LIF to focus on what was required to deliver established growth ambitions outlined in existing approved plans. Having an established growth ambition outlined in policy is therefore an important pre-condition for undertaking an Infrastructure Framework such as the LIF.
• To support investor engagement on projects listed in the LIF, more detail on projects – their status, costings, investability and governance is key. The GLA is now working to enhance the level of detail on the LIF pipeline to ensure improved engagement around investment opportunity and exploring the concept of establishing an Infrastructure Delivery Champion to move projects forward to investment.

Next steps

I am not saying that London has all the answers, but as you’ll see in a jam packed LCAW, we have been working to find collaborative solutions to some of the big growth and climate challenges we all face. The LIF is just one example of how a collaborative approach can unlock new ways of understanding and planning for interconnected infrastructure systems that support growth, housing, and resilience. 

If you would like to learn more about the strategic infrastructure framework approach, please reach out via zach.wilcox@mottmac.com. 

Thanks to Eloise Rousseau and Andrew McMunnigall for their contributions to this blog, in the spirit of continuous collaboration.

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