Infrastructure must stop being viewed as a secondary consideration, argues Tom O’Brien
The government’s pledge to build 1.5 million new homes has set an ambitious pace for the construction industry, but in the drive to deliver, the equally important factor of securing the infrastructure needed to support those new communities risks being overlooked. Whilst few within the sector would argue against the need to build more homes, there is a growing disconnect between the headline government target and the practical realities of delivering developments that work.
What we need to see is greater emphasis on creating towns and neighbourhoods that work for both the developers and the existing communities. The only way to do that is by putting more time, attention, and funding into the supporting infrastructure, and the companies that make it happen. Infrastructure and civil engineering must be a priority.
But as developers contend with affordable housing requirements, biodiversity net gain obligations, and an ever-expanding list of planning conditions, supporting infrastructure is slipping down the list of priorities. In many cases it remains on the drawing board until the later stages of planning, only for significant issues to emerge that delay projects or require costly redesigns.
Infrastructure has never simply been about roads and drainage - it encompasses utilities, highways, public transport, schools, healthcare provision and the wider services that allow communities to function.
When these elements are not planned alongside housing, the consequences are felt long after the first residents move in. Existing infrastructure comes under pressure, local services become stretched and developments fail to deliver the quality of place that planning policy increasingly seeks to achieve.
That cannot continue: successful placemaking depends just as much on what supports a development as the homes themselves.
The planning system itself is compounding many of these challenges, as businesses can spend months, and sometimes considerably longer, waiting for technical approvals before essential infrastructure works can begin, despite already having secured planning permission. These delays have become increasingly common, adding substantial cost and uncertainty to projects and by extension, uncertainty to the contractors and subcontractors that rely heavily on keeping to schedule.
The knock-on effects extend far beyond revised programmes. With nearly half of all councils in 2025 reporting that they saw a staff turnover of more than 10% in their planning department, framework consultants can reach the end of their appointments while waiting for approvals to be issued, requiring new design teams to be appointed. Those teams understandably want to review or amend previous work, but this results in further consultations, redesigns and additional expense that ultimately falls on developers and the wider project team.
It is difficult to reconcile these delays and inconsistencies with a national commitment to accelerate housing delivery, particularly when the delays arise after planning permission has already been granted.
Greater emphasis must be placed on the systems enabling development to happen: faster technical approvals, better coordination between planning authorities, utility providers and developers, and earlier collaboration across the project team
Utilities present a similar contradiction. Access to power is taking longer to secure and becoming significantly more expensive, yet the industry is simultaneously being encouraged to adopt electric plant and equipment to reduce emissions on site. In reality, permanent electrical connections frequently do not become available until the latter stages of construction, by which point heavy civil engineering activities responsible for the majority of site emissions have already been completed.
The power bottleneck for new developments also drastically impacts project delivery, causing delays for one third of businesses, increasing costs for 32% and obstructing energy transition plans for a quarter. The ambition to decarbonise construction is the right one, but without investment in the supporting infrastructure, the industry is being asked to meet expectations that are often beyond its control.
None of this is an argument against higher environmental standards or better placemaking as the industry recognises the importance of reducing carbon emissions, enhancing biodiversity and creating sustainable communities. The difficulty is that every additional policy requirement carries financial and programme implications, and those pressures are coming a time when inflation, taxation, labour shortages and material costs continue to challenge project viability.
When delays within the planning system and utility provision are added to that equation, schemes that once appeared commercially sound can quickly become complicated, leaving developers with difficult decisions about whether projects can proceed at all.
This uncertainty highlights that greater emphasis must be placed on the systems enabling development to happen: faster technical approvals, better coordination between planning authorities, utility providers and developers, and earlier collaboration across the project team to ensure infrastructure is designed and delivered alongside housing rather than after it. Without that shift in thinking, the industry risks spending more time navigating avoidable delays than building the homes the country urgently needs.
If we genuinely want to create thriving communities rather than simply hit housing targets, infrastructure must stop being viewed as a secondary consideration. It is the foundation upon which successful developments depend, and until it is treated as such, the ambition to significantly increase housing delivery will remain far harder to achieve than the headline figures suggest.
Tom O’Brien is a director at O’Brien Contractors
No comments yet