According to research from Arcadis delayed and cancelled infrastructure projects are costing the UK almost £70 million per day.
Delayed and cancelled infrastructure projects are costing the UK almost £70 million per day, and cut UK GDP by £6 billion in the past year, according to new research from design and consultancy firm Arcadis.
A new report from the firm, dramatically titled "The Spiralling Cost of Indecision" shows that for every minute a major transport infrastructure project is delayed, the potential cost is as high as £48,000, which over the course of a 24-hour period stacks up to more than £69 million.
Arcadis' research found that during the last year, infrastructure spending delays and cancellations amounted to as much as £4.6 billion, and reduced Britain's GDP by as much as £6 billion.
The most successful economies in the world have large-scale and efficient infrastructure. This requires continual investment from businesses and the government in order to remain competitive and to keep an economy running smoothly.
The more infrastructure projects are dented, the more it costs the economy, as the report notes (emphasis ours):
"The delays are caused by many reasons including planning, purchasing and the reprioritisation of programmes. However, regardless of the cause our analysis shows that the cumulative impact of these delays can still be significant. Had all the planned infrastructure spend for 2015/2016 taken place during that period, GDP would have been around £6 billion greater; an increase of 0.3 percent."