Hertfordshire Infrastructure Investment Strategy (HIIS)
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FOREWORD In early 2012 I was commissioned by Hertfordshire County Council on behalf of the Hertfordshire Infrastructure & Investment Partnership (HIPP) and the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (Herts LEP) to undertake a refresh of the 2009 Hertfordshire Infrastructure and Investment Strategy (HIIS - a study in which I had acted as project manager for the 11 Hertfordshire authorities who had collectively commissioned it. The need for the refresh of the 2009 study was felt to be self evident. Since the date of publication, whilst the need for new infrastructure for the county had not diminished, much of the context in which it was being promoted had changed. HIPP and the Herts LEP wanted to understand these changes and the impact they were having, particularly insofar as they were likely to affect the likelihood of delivery. Equally however they also wanted to consider ways in which the drive to deliver new infrastructure could be ramped up. The document is partly a statement of where we are now and what that means for infrastructure planning in Hertfordshire, but partly also an attempt to point the way forward for the key Hertfordshire agencies - what they need to do deliver more infrastructure projects in the county. This calls for both new ways of thinking and new alliances of agencies working constructively together. Much is made in this report of the changes to the infrastructure planning landscape since 2009 and now. What is perhaps quite striking is the change of emphasis that has come about in the last few months, after the report's contents had been finalised following the October 2012 Hertfordshire Infrastructure Planning Conference. I cover this in Chapter 11, which provides in many ways a very positive postscript to the rest of the report. There is no doubt that infrastructure planning and delivery is now more 'centre stage' than it has been for many years - not only seen as key to Hertfordshire's general health and wellbeing, but also crucial in terms of the role it is expected to play in leading the country out of the economic doldrums. For that reason, this report is very timely. The next stage will be to turn the findings into reality Rob Shipway R S Regeneration January 2013 [email protected] (i) TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword… ……….…...…………………………………………………………………………….(i) Executive Summary .............................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 2: About HIIS - what it achieved and why review it now? ......................................... 7 Chapter 3: The changing world of infrastructure planning ................................................... 10 Chapter 4: the scope of the update of HIIS ......................................................................... 16 Chapter 5: Updating Hertfordshire’s Infrastructure Needs ................................................... 17 Chapter 6: Relationship between the spatial aspects of growth and infrastructure need ..... 49 Chapter 7: The Funding of Hertfordshire's Infrastructure .................................................... 64 Chapter 8: The relationship between strategic and local infrastructure need ....................... 74 Chapter 9: The Management of Infrastructure Planning and Delivery ................................. 86 Chapter 10: Findings and conclusions .............................................................................. 100 Chapter 11: Postcript - new infrastructure related initiatives in autumn 2012 ..................... 109 Appendix A – Assumptions on growth levels to 2031 ........................................................ 110 Appendix B – Review of growth within masterplanned Areas ............................................ 116 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. This review of the 2009 Hertfordshire Infrastructure & Investment Strategy (HIIS) has been jointly commissioned by the Hertfordshire Infrastructure Planning Partnership (HIPP) and the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (Herts LEP) as a result of the many changes to the world of infrastructure planning and delivery that have come about since the original report's publication. 2. Much of what the 2009 HIIS study was able to cover remains valid, so this review covers only specific areas that need to be addressed because of changed circumstances. Only a partial review of infrastructure needs has been conducted, therefore, and this review does not revisit historic infrastructure needs, developer receipts or viability issues. 3. It does however focus on the relationship between future growth and infrastructure needs, the managing of infrastructure and delivery, and the relationship between strategic and local infrastructure need. These are all areas that the 2009 HIIS report was unable to explore in full, or where other changes in the political and planning landscape means that a new set of circumstances needs to be considered. 4. Those changes include the ongoing impact of the recession: the adoption of a National Planning Policy Framework; the removal of the regional planning tier and the new emphasis on localism; new funding mechanisms, some of which are more likely to 'reward' Hertfordshire; and finally the emergence of the Hertfordshire LEP and its potential role in infrastructure planning. 5. Additionally, the recent experiences of the assessment of bids to the government's Growing Places Fund shows that Hertfordshire is not yet in the place it needs to be in having a depth of infrastructure projects ready and able to take advantage of new funding opportunities. 6. The review updates the county's infrastructure needs by revisiting the key services that provide the county's infrastructure, and asks the question of what has changed. The position is patchy: much for instance has happened to move events forward in terms of transportation needs, including strategic planning and partnership work which will lead to the delivery of the Croxley Rail Link in Watford. 7. A range of other services - education, adult care, children's services for instance, have a solid basis for planning and delivering new facilities to respond to the growth agenda (although they are also having to cope with in some cases, demographic changes, including a rising birth rate and an aging population). 8. Other infrastructure provision, it is fair to say, has some way to go: green infrastructure provision needs to move beyond strategy to implementable projects, health infrastructure providers are having to cope with service delivery and procurement changes simultaneously, whilst a number of utility providers have the tendency to be reactive to changing needs, rather than taking a more proactive role. And since 2009, 'new' infrastructure - superfast broadband and the delivery of renewable energy projects - has grown in importance. REFRESH OF HIIS JANUARY 2013 1 9. The review then turns its attention to the relationship between the spatial aspects of growth and infrastructure need, and finds big changes since 2009. With the sweeping away of both the regional tier of government and the imposition of minimum growth requirements on local authorities, numbers are changing; the review now anticipates that 22,000 fewer dwellings (102,000 down from 124,000) will be built in the county in the 30 years to 2031. Large scale greenfield releases which were being contemplated during the current decade are now not likely to take place until after 2021. 10. Consequently the nature of infrastructure planning will have a much greater emphasis on incremental growth rather than major urban extensions, although some shorter term smaller scale (c500 dwelling) proposals are anticipated over the next few years as well as the promotion of a range of strategic sites. 11. A number of uncertainties remain about precise numbers and locations of new development and until these are resolved, infrastructure planning will continue to pose difficulties for service providers. One thing is certain however, is even that even the reduced levels of development now expected will need new infrastructure to serve it, and that the backlog of infrastructure need (what the 2009 HIIS report referred to as the Infrastructure Deficit, at some £2.4bn) still remains. 12. The review then turns to the funding of infrastructure, including the impact of the introduction of the Community Infrastructure Levy. When introduced in the county over the next few years, the charge will make a substantial difference to the funding of new infrastructure, but it will in no way be the complete answer - the review estimates that it is likely to fund less than 20% of the county's future infrastructure needs - a case study of Baldock's infrastructure needs backs this up, and illustrates the difficult choices that will be faced in prioritising CIL investment. 13. The answer is that CIL may have to be increasingly seen as providing 'top up' funding rather than 'whole project' funding - for instance plugging an infrastructure funding gap as part of an overall funding packages. The review examines how infrastructure funding packages work, firstly by taking a look at the structure of the £1.5bn Greater Manchester Transport Fund, and then moving closer to home by illustrating how the funding for the Croxley Rail Link came together. 14. A range of new and emerging funding initiatives are illustrated, with the commentary that the Hertfordshire agencies need to explore