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Nigel Jackson, chief executive MPA, said: “We have heard the words, we now need a greater sense of urgency and accelerated delivery to create confidence for the private sector to invest to really boost growth.”
The 2012 Autumn Statement announced additional funding for transport including road construction and road maintenance. However, sales volumes of asphalt for road surfacing have declined by 8% so far this year, following an 18% decline in 2012, indicating that delivery of this additional funding on the ground has yet to start happening.
Jackson added: “This shows that there can be a gap between policy aspiration and delivery on the ground which can undermine confidence.
“The imperative to build more affordable and private housing due to the chronic undersupply, as well as replacing our fragile energy supply capacity and transport system remains as strong as ever.”
The MPA) has also welcomed the statement from Planning Minister, Nick Boles, announcing that aggregate and industrial mineral proposals should be able to use the newly-extended Nationally Significant Infrastructure (NSI) planning regime.
“Aggregates and industrial minerals, such as cement and silica sand, are essential to the economy and there is no doubt that many of the operations run by MPA members are nationally significant. The problem is that quarry operators are finding it difficult to justify investment in new sites and the uncertainties of the planning and permitting system continue to cause concern,” said Jackson.
Categorisation of aggregate and industrial mineral development as Nationally Significant also opens up proposals to the streamlined one-stop-shop service to deal with all the consents needed to run an operation at one go. The MPA is hopeful that this will overcome the problem that operators have at the moment whereby, having made the case for planning permission to be granted, they are faced with making the same arguments again in order to obtain necessary permits from other government agencies.
“But not all proposals will be a good match for the NSI process. So we strongly support the intention to make applications for the use of the new system at the discretion of the applicant who will now have a choice as to how best to secure planning for future developments. While the flexibility given to the Secretary of State to determine what is in scope is also welcome, there is a need for additional clarity as to the precise criteria he will use,” added Jackson.
XHD: Lafarge Tarmac
In a separate statement in response to a UK infrastructure statement from Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Paul Fleetham, managing director of
