Research just published by East Midlands Development Agency (emda) highlights some of the major infrastructure issues that will need to be addressed to ensure sustainable economic development and growth in the future.   

Carried out on emda's behalf by Ove Arup & Partners Ltd, it helps to explain the complex processes involved in the delivery of the region's infrastructure networks. The research specifically focuses on energy, water supply and sewerage treatment, flood defences and information communications technology / broadband.

As Abby Johnson Brennan, emda's Deputy Chief Executive explained: "The economic downturn had a severe impact on the development sector, and has changed many of the established assumptions about how new infrastructure will be funded. This research provides a snapshot of the potential constraints on current and future developments, and considers some of the solutions."

The final report, available on emda's website, provides: 

an explanation of many of the funding, delivery and regulatory issues affecting how infrastructure development is implemented; an assessment of the extent to which infrastructure providers are involved in the planning of future development across the East Midlands; a series of maps to indicate how potential future levels of development relate to current and anticipated infrastructure capacity, based on published investment plans of many of the main providers. 

It highlights a number of interesting findings, such as: power capacity for parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottingham City may already be a constraint on growth without additional investment; water distribution infrastructure will require investment across much of the East Midlands if planned levels of growth are to be delivered; the lack of engagement between planners and infrastructure providers, along with a mismatch between short-term (5 year) investment planning and long-term (20 year) land-use planning, often delays or prevents new developments.

Potential high and low cost solutions to some of these issues are identified in the report. These include:

identifying new sources of investment to deliver key infrastructure before it reaches a critical stage, including through locally developed tax or business rate initiatives; improving joint working and communication between Local Authorities and infrastructure providers to better integrate investment plans and planning policies; boosting resource efficient developments through 'low carbon' energy solutions to help alleviate some of the future pressures on the existing infrastructure networks. 

Abby Johnson Brennan added: "Going forward, Regional Development Agencies will be replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships, but we believe that many of the issues raised by this research will be highly relevant to LEPs and other partners as they plan for future economic growth and regeneration in the East Midlands."

Commenting on the research, Nick Ebbs, Chief Executive of innovative regeneration company Blueprint, said: "Significant investment in infrastructure is going to be required over the next decade if we are going to deliver on important regeneration, housing growth and economic development agendas. Many projects are currently stalled because of infrastructure challenges - think Nottingham and Leicester waterside for example.

"Whilst developers and the privatised network operators will deliver much unaided on the more challenging projects, we need to find new mechanisms to fund 'up front' infrastructure work. emda's report is an important exploration of the issues and proposes a number of options that merit serious consideration."

The executive summary and full 'Infrastructure Funding Report' is available to download via the Publications and Links / Key Documents section of emda's website.