Introduction Planning for infrastructure: transitional pathways for lagging regions

Abstract

The publication of the UK Government's 'National Infrastructure Plan' by the Treasury in 2010 (HM Treasury and UK Infrastructure) acknowledged the need for major infrastructure investment, both new and replacement, to achieve sustainable and balanced economic and environmental development. More importantly, it marked a commitment from the government and other key stakeholders to develop a more strategic approach towards infrastructure planning. These policies and the wider shifts in infrastructure - both physical and electronic - will have massive impacts across the UK, not least on the functional economies of different regions.In the northern regions of England (the North West, North East and Yorkshire and Humber), which have traditionally been seen as economically lagging, historical and current policies have impacted upon their ability to attract infrastructure investment. Yet within these northern regions, infrastructure funding, development and accessi- bility are spatially diverse. Two distributional drivers are of particular concern. First, is the ability of the north to compete with other more economically buoyant regions for infrastructure investment; second, is the equitable spatial distribution of that investment throughout the north's towns and cities. It is this need to balance competi- tive market demand for investment with wider strategic and equitable distributional policy concerns that makes the lagging northern regions interesting research subjects throughout which to examine a range of contemporary issues concerning infrastruc- ture delivery and the way it can create new transitional pathways of development. The north of England is therefore used in this special edition of Town Planning Review as a case study to explore the ways in which infrastructure might influence different transitional pathways. In doing so, it discusses in some depth a range of issues related to understanding the scale of the infrastructure challenge and how this impacts on space and people; how best to determine the cost and benefits of infrastructure devel- opment and how that influences decisions; the most appropriate methods by which infrastructure should be planned to develop those pathways; and the future potential that appropriately planned infrastructure can have for lagging regions.A scoping conference on 'Enabling a strategic approach to transformational infrastructure' sponsored by the N8 Universities Partnership was held at Manchester Business School in February 2012, with twenty-five leading researchers, infrastructure providers, industries, management consultants and policymakers. The future research agenda identified by the stakeholders is discussed in more detail by Cecilia Wong and Brian Webb in this issue, but broadly points to the need to map out the transfor- mational pathways of spatial development by better understanding how infrastruc- ture can be delivered in different ways to positively and progressively transform the economic, environmental and social outlook under different spatial contexts. This special issue of Town Planning Review thus seeks to build on the earlier N8 conference discussions and explore key ideas and concepts related to the dynamic interaction between planning policy and practice and infrastructure development and imple- mentation. In doing so, it places particular emphasis on planning for infrastructure in the three northern regions of England, where economic growth is viewed as stagnant in comparison to other regions. The challenges that lagging regions, such as those in the north of England, present when planning for infrastructure, as well as the poten- tial impact infrastructure could have on improving economic and social planning outcomes in these places, are addressed in the five papers that follow this introduction.The north-south divide is a well-established concept in the UK literature, yet there is a lack of debate about how infrastructure provision may be used to either perpet- uate this socio-economic divide or help to bridge it. …