Ensuring the infrastructure to support growth

1.38 What has been said here about energy and water highlights the importance of ensuring London has physical infrastructure adequate for the needs of a growing city, meeting the highest and most modern standards to help us use the city’s resources as efficiently and sustainably as possible. It will be important for the whole range of utility providers to work together and with the capital’s government to make sure London has the infrastructure it needs, in the places it is needed – whether this is the network of substations and power lines distributing electricity, the network of water or gas mains or the wires and fibre optic cables that facilitate the flow of information increasingly important to a modern city. This is a key message of the Mayor’s ‘2020 Vision’.

1.39 Transport infrastructure will also have a vital part to play in supporting the capital’s success and a good quality of life. The planning of transport services and the physical infrastructure they require will need to be carefully coordinated with the growth and development envisaged by this Plan. This is a key theme both of this Plan and of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy.

1.40 In addition to this ‘hard’ infrastructure, a growing and increasingly diverse population will create demand for more social infrastructure, ranging from schools, colleges and universities, theatres, museums and libraries through health facilities to spaces for local groups and places of worship. A green infrastructure of green and other open spaces also has a crucial part to play in ensuring good health and a high quality of life – as well as helping to address the challenges of climate change.

1.41 All these demands will have to be managed while public resources are likely to be short. Some may be met by making better use of existing infrastructure, but it is likely that addressing them all will require the capital’s local authorities, businesses, voluntary organisations and other stakeholders concerned about London’s future development to work with the Mayor in making the strong case for future investment in the capital’s fabric. As the Mayor’s London Finance Commission has pointed out^[1] all of these organisations will have to work together to identify and optimise use of the various ways of funding infrastructure – whether making the best use of the mechanisms within the existing planning system, pressing for new revenue-raising powers or exploring innovative approaches like tax increment financing.

^[1] London Finance Commission. Raising the capital. The report of the London Finance Commission. GLA 2013