The future of the UK’s climate-resilient infrastructure

Recorded immediately after JBA's invitation-only Climate Resilience Exchange at this year's Flood and Coast conference, in this episode, Phil sits down with David Hodcroft, Head of Strategic Infrastructure at Greater Manchester Combined Authority, to unpack the conversation. 

Together, they explore how the UK’s 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy can move from ambition to action - connecting infrastructure delivery, catchment-scale thinking, governance reform, nature-based solutions, private finance, and community outcomes into one joined-up resilience approach.

Thank you for listening to this episode. 

For any comments, questions or insights please contact phil.emonson@jbaconsulting.com.

Visit our website jbaconsulting.com
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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Climate Resilience Podcast brought to you by JBA Consulting. I'm Phil Emundsen, and in this podcast series, we unpick some of the complexities, challenges, and opportunities on the topic of climate resilience with some inspirational thought leaders. Whether you're working on local adaptation projects, planning for climate risk, or simply looking for hope backed by science, you're in the right place. If you enjoy these conversations, be sure to follow the podcast and subscribe wherever you listen. Share with your friends and colleagues too, anyone interested in building a more resilient future. Now, let's jump into today's episode. Today's episode comes to you at a fascinating moment. I'm joined by David Hobcroft, who is head of strategic infrastructure at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. And he's joining me fresh out from JBA's latest climate resilience exchange roundtable, held this afternoon on the eve of the annual Food and Coast Conference in Liverpool. The event is the fourth session in our series of roundtables, and today cross-sector leaders from industry and academia have been diving deep into the UK's ten year infrastructure strategy. And they've been discussing how to turn uh ambition into action, how to advance system-wide climate resilience, how to embed integrated catchment thinking, and how to strengthen the link between national investment and community-level outcomes. And it builds on the calls from our previous round tables for cross-sector governance, reform and socially inclusive approaches. Many of these conversations will move to centre stage in the coming days at Flood and Coast. So this feels like the perfect time to take stock whilst these ideas are still fresh. So whether you're heading to Flood and Coast or just trying to make sense of where resilience fits in the national infrastructure agenda, this is a really timely conversation. So, David, I'm delighted to have you on the podcast this afternoon. Welcome. And perhaps you could start by introducing yourself.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Thank you, Phil. Uh, great to be here. Thanks for my introduction in terms of my job title. So I am head of strategic infrastructure at the combined authority. I am a town planner by background. So my work essentially uh centres around uh providing the strategic context of infrastructure planning and delivery for the combined authority and how we kind of work together with our partners across the utility sector to make sure it is aligned to the greater monster strategy, our integrated pipeline, and how we try and work through some of that complexity of the government funding arrangements uh and those governments, the governance arrangements as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

So happy to be here. Super, thank you. And some of those things about working with partners and getting heads around the complexity of it, I'm sure, were on the table in this afternoon's um climate resilience exchange. So I'm sure we'll get into that. Um so as I said, you've come straight out of the round table. Um, so tell me tell me about it. Who who was in the room, what sectors were represented, uh, what are your immediate reactions, and and what were the sort of headlines that you that you discussed?

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah, sure. So in terms of the sectors who were there, so obviously I think I was it was I was unique. I think I was on the Merrill Gaban authority in the room. We did have uh the leads on flooding from Leeds City Council, uh consultancies represented, uh the environment agency. We had people there from the energy sector, uh, academia, and some of the technical consultancy sectors. So just jump across to some of the main conclusions we came out from the section from the meeting itself. So we did have um, we talked around there were some some key headlines takeaway, and that was having a clear purpose. You need to have a purpose to where you're going and your vision and your direction, needs to some accountability and scrutiny and ownership. One of the other key threads was around value-based decision making, integrated infrastructure investment programs, and having the right incentives, delivery at the right spatial scale, depending on what particular infrastructure uh asset or system you're talking about. Um, and we were, we did clear that there is actually some good practice out there across the country. Sometimes it may not be communicated what the good practice is, but there is some good practice to share. We did one of the key points as well was around the key role for NISTA and NISTA deploying its convening power. We talked around using some sandboxes to try and work together and collaborate. And then the conclusion was he wanted to kind of develop a uh a collective problem statement, which which really was one of the outcomes from the meeting today. So, hopefully, that kind of gives you a summary of what we we agreed right at the end, but yeah, happy to go into some of those questions in more detail.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Excellent, excellent, thank you. And and and NISTA being the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, the the sort of government um government agency, government authority there. Um fabulous. So um look, let's let's take it then almost section by section as you went through the meeting. Um, good to have those headlines laid out there. I think the first um topic uh of discussion for the group this afternoon was around integrated systems thinking. So we have the um 10-year infrastructure strategy. A lot of detail in that. Um we had um David Port on actually on the podcast uh a few episodes ago, who's president of the ICE, talking about um the ICE's State of the Nation report, which is their uh reaction and response to the 10-year infrastructure strategy. So that was great. Um but this this first question then was around integrated systems thinking, and I suppose specifically the governance, the regulatory, the institutional changes that we need to see so that we can get clear ownership of cross-sector infrastructure. You mentioned David there, one of the one of the headlines was around you know who who should be accountable, you know, who should be accountable for for managing and funding and and delivering resilience. So, what was discussed in that first thematic um session?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah, sure. Just kind of just go through some of the the headline uh words which were talked about. So again, the word resilience was clearly mentioned, systems thinking, good growth was mentioned, the words of resilience, reliability, and recovery, uh climate change, adaptation. Uh there's a point made that resilience is everyone's responsibility, but no one's accountable for that. We did also talk around the strategy itself and what a strategy means. And we did also talk through that actually plans are worthless, but planning is everything. So we're saying actually a plan is good because it gives you the direction where you want to go to, but it doesn't give you any certainty because there is always change happening, whether it's global events or local events or political change. But the process of having a plan helps organizations understand what they're working towards and how they're going to communicate with uh with the different stakeholder partners. And then we also talked around outcomes, the whole system approach, how we build that better. We talked about extreme weather, but actually we talked about just the usual weather and and a growth dynamics as well, the shocks and capacity of the system to adapt to that change. Uh, we also highlighted some of the kind of the biggest opportunities in terms of aligning place outcomes, what that means at a geographical scale. So we're talking through again what is the right appropriate scale. So clearly, if you did if you're delivering a railway scheme and it's it's across the whole of the country, then it should be a national issue. But then there are certain areas where it does come down to scrutiny and accountability. And then again, again, I could talk through my own experience was where Merakaban authorities do have an integrated settlement. Uh, a lot of that is public funding from the taxpayer, but also the utility companies are utilizing funding from the billpayer. So, how do you bring these elements together collectively to deliver those outcomes? And then uh was also talking through well, how do we know what resilience actually means at the right spatial scale? Because it is complex. So, and even working through the stakeholders, we did uh highlight there is the government departments elements. Again, this is why we the the the NIST element came in national strategy because we're talking through well, there are multiple government departments involved in infrastructure planning, but also in resilience, there is a separate regulatory element to that, and then there are the the individual organizations. So, how do you bring those together at the right spatial scale to understand what is the baseline you're working towards, what information do you have, what outcomes are you trying to achieve, where do you make those trade-offs? Who determines where those trade-offs happen? What is a longer-term outcome you're trying to make and to work through? And all that does need facilitating and translating collectively. So, again, the phrase was used around we do need a common purpose to drive that delivery, and you need to clarify that common purpose, otherwise, you can't really work together, you're not sure why you're working together, and you need a mechanism to bring everybody together on the same page, so you're clear who is actually doing what bits of activity to move forward those actions, and then the definitions that we did talk through around how you measure the outcome, and there's a different scale of granularity, of granularity, whether it's national or it's sub-regional, and then we really did pivot against some clear outcomes linked to society, the environment, and the economy, um, with some clear messaging, and think that the right spatial scale was a really key point, which was mentioned quite a few times. So, again, concluding the question one, it was outcomes, time scales over what period of time are working to, what's a baseline position, how do you communicate that position. Data was mentioned repeatedly about how you bring information and data together at the right spatial scale, and how do you communicate and convene the right individuals and the actors together at that scale?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Great. So some um something you've alluded to there um is um who who is responsible, who is accountable for resilience, right? Um and something we've spoken about a lot on this podcast is resilience by its nature, um, involves the breaking down of silos. It is it is multi-sectoral, and as as evidenced by the many varied voices and sectors that you had represented in the room today. I'm gonna quote two previous podcast guests now. Um firstly, Lena Laiku, who was on uh around January time, who's the managing director of the Resilient Cities Network. And uh on LinkedIn, just uh literally last of a day, she's put out a statement, but what within that she says that resilience is never built by one person or one organization, it's built through trust, shared learning, partnerships, and people willing to work across silos. Okay, and I'll also quote um John O'Brien, who is the founder of the Anthropy Gathering down in down in Cornwall. And he their their strap line is leave your ego and silo at the door. So we've got we've got this thing, right, about uh you know, breaking out of your silos, right? Um, and and I think that is um representative of uh the resilience dialogue, this this idea of full cross-sector partnership working, um, and and working through the complexities of it, you know, with effectively with all of the stakeholders. Um so I I'm really interested, David, from from sort of your work uh in GMCA, just a little bit. So I've just got one sort of inserted question here, um, which is uh um it's not meant to be a trick question. I'm I'm genuinely I'm genuinely interested. Who who would you say is uh responsible and accountable for resilience in GMCA and the work that you do in infrastructure planning?

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Again, from a GMCA perspective, um again, it is one of those words where it is in the our corporate strategy, yeah, and we'll we will say it is a cross-cutting aim because we do want to be uh stronger to shocks and stresses. But but also again, this is this is part of what we're talking through in the round table, they're saying actually we do have in Great Manchester, we have a resilience forum, which is a traditionally a an emergency planning response. Yeah, resilience forum, but the LRS, and and there they want to push the the agenda for just being them at the end of the issue, making it a truly a cross-cutting issue. But then the good risk is it becomes it becomes like saying climate adaptation is everyone's responsibility, it becomes a responsibility of everybody, but actually no one's accountable for this. So, all I can say is from a GMCA perspective, we do have a strategic infrastructure board, and resilience is one of our cross-cutting themes. So we do bring together the main infrastructure providers, yeah, and how we then communicate and work together on what our shared priorities and issues are, and how we do convene um those organizations together and try and give them that that shared purpose where we do have a have a clear aim collectively to work together.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

And and I think another point was mentioned. I think they were saying teams do, and again, the representatives from today, they were talking about who their professional organization is, whether it's the Institute of Civil Engineers, it's SIWEM and town planning. The individual professions do want to work together out of their silos, but unless you give them a framework within which they can operate, they will naturally kind of work in their silos. So I think I don't want to say any more because this we picked up some of this under question two, yeah, around how you turn strategy into delivery.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Well, let's let's let's let's segue into into question two, then David. So um uh it was as you've as you've just said, the set the second question of the of the afternoon for you was yeah, it was focused on how do you turn strategy into local delivery. I think specifically um what delivery models, funding mechanisms, and uh governance arrangements are needed um to scale uh local catchment infrastructure solutions as national delivery frameworks. So um, you know, how do you how do you ensure um consistency in community resilience outcomes? So again, David, really interested in your reflections and the outcomes and outputs from the group this afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

I think what I was just looking at my notes here with people did we did uh write down clarity on a deadline. So we're talking about the Olympic uh village in London. So we say the Olympic Village was clearly delivered because there was a burning platform of a deadline to meet. So the individual organizations did come together with a purpose to achieve something at a spatial scale. Um, and you can see how from a great mass of perspective, this is the we are trying to deliver the same approach by having a 10-year integrated pipeline. We have geographical location where we're trying to uh deliver growth and development, housing, skills, employment, integrate the transport system into that geographical space, using marrow development corporations as a delivery vehicle. So again, it is coming down to that point as well, it was clarity on a deadline, but also responsibility is who is responsible and who is who is accountable for for delivering those uh the actions, the outputs. But also, one of the examples mentioned was during uh during the COVID pandemic, there was a Nightingale hospital hospital which did get delivered. But but I think the conclusion from those examples were we're saying nationally we're great at responding to a crisis, we're not that that great historically at actually working together, trying to deliver something outside of a crisis. So, how do you how do you how do you provide that same energy and direction as a country to outline these are the infrastructure outcomes to achieve at different geographical scales? And how do you create that sense of urgency to make sure we are delivering on the ground as well? And I think the second point linked to that was um the question raised was who is looking across the system? So, who in government looked across the system? And that's why it went back to the national infrastructure strategy because really we're saying the individual government departments, the individual regulators look at the world through their lens, but it was really only NISTA who were looking at uh that system as a whole. So, there's lots of discussion around systems planning and how we actually map out the system we're actually working in to identify where's the main leverage point, who are the main actors that need to be engaged. How do you link all that to a coherent evidence base?

SPEAKER_00 18:08

That that's very interesting because actually, if you were to look at let's take the flood and water sector, for example, actually, it's hugely fragmented, even in terms of its even in terms of its sort of fund funding cycles, right? So, you know, some of the flood and coastal, you know, strategic long-term frameworks are out with the water company amp cycles, you know. Um so actually you've you've got you've got different time horizons that different regulators, different operators, different actors are working to. So that that immediately puts different um, you know, you're talking about that creating that sense of urgency to an immovable deadline. Well, actually, that's quite that's quite tricky. Well, actually, all these different regulators and operators have got their own different time horizons that they're working to. Yeah, that's true. It's really fascinating. There are probably very good reasons why you perhaps can't align some of those, but actually from the outside looking in, you say, well, you know, sure, surely, surely we can try try and align some of these sort of long-term funding horizons so that actually we can, you know, we can we can dovetail on some of the major infrastructure strategies and and and funding cycles because that's only going to benefit our partners, our stakeholders, the contractors, etc. Um you you mentioned there then, so who is looking across the system, and you came back to NISTA. Um, and I I think I sort of interjected there, but tell me a little bit more about what the group felt the role of NISTA could be in this space, then.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

I think the group felt at a national scale, NISTA could help convene the relevant organizations together or even share good practice. Like I said earlier on, there is some good practice out there, but it's probably not being communicated enough, or it's happening on a kind of ad hoc basis. So, again, at one scale, we did we've talked about the national infrastructure pipeline. So, at least nationally, you can see there is the industrial strategy. Uh, the infrastructure strategy is going to align the infrastructure requirements to the industrial strategy to create the growth across the country. The national pipeline is at least going some way to give the market some visibility of current committed infrastructure projects. But but picking up the point you mentioned around how you incentivize organizations to work together, so those individual cycles will always be uh they'll never be aligned, but we talked around incentives. Right. So there are two examples we did talk about. So one example was United Utilities are working with uh network rail to see if they could utilize some of their assets to manage surface water. So that's not the role of network rail to manage surface water, but clearly there's a shared outcome at geographical scale. We also talked about United Utilities through one of their funding programs uh being treated by Offwat as a national pilot linked to rainwater management funding to deploy nature-based solutions to get water out of UU system, uh, because that delivers a reduction on the spill of the outfall, but it delivers wider benefits and wider values if you can link it to growth, transport, economic development. And also, I referred to there is an incentive that's been applied to Cadence via what's called GD3, which is gas distribution level three from April this year, and that's a collaborative street works incentive. So that's where Cadent they could claim an incentive if they collaborate with one of the utility companies to uh collaborate on their street works. So that's it's it's a social value metric which covers same more drainage systems, uh less disruption, it could be skills created, uh quality improvements. So the point we're making is. If you set the incentive within the regulatory framework, that should then incentivize those organizations to collaborate together at the right spatial scale. If you clear on what your outcome is basically baseline, will that then incentivize the utilities to work together? I'll not be myself, but at a mayoral combined authority scale, we'd want to work together to deliver. We've got an integrated pipeline, an integrated settlement for the government with outcome metrics that the government, as we've agreed with the government, then clearly it makes sense for another part of the government to be aligning the metrics from the regulatory side to help integrate some of that investment so we can deliver wider benefits and impact at the right spatial scale.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Using incentives, as you say, it it sort of becomes a um a sort of social value um uh exercise or initiative. Um, but embedding that in the regulatory framework as a way to get partnership working collaboration. Um you mentioned their outcome metrics, which is something we might come back to in a little in a little while, because I'm really interested in um um what good looks like and uh how we um yeah how we ensure um community uh climate resilience outcomes um that we can um that we can justify. Um but I'm I'm gonna move us into the third and final topic of your conversation at the round table this afternoon, which um please in some ways is related actually to that point. Because it was about um how measurable and system-wide resilience outcomes can be defined and indeed mandated if that is uh if that is possible. Um so yeah, talk to me about this third question then, David. Um let's let's talk around around that.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, so I think that the third question did it was a nice, it did move on from the previous conversation. We did go back to the early conversations as well. So we're talking about the exam question was around was centered on asset classes, right? So again, it brought us lots of asset management um discussion. So asset management, individual organizations manage their assets individually. Yeah. Uh and I think there was an early conversation where we did talk about do we even know where our assets are? What information and data do we have? So there's reference to Daphne, if anyone's heard of that, so it's a data and analytics facility for uh national infrastructure. So the conversation was do we know where assets are? Do we know how assets are at a spatial scale? What systems do we utilize to understand where assets are? Do we know how our assets perform? What thresholds are they using? There's a discussion looking at climate change projections and what they mean for assets, uh metrics and how we measure all this. We did talk about um the National Underground Asset Register is a register of, as the name says, underground assets. Yeah. Lots of the partners on the table have put that assets into the register, but the the newer is is used for striker voters, but could it be used for something broader? And then we're talking through, well, at a play scale, there'll be assets in there from the agency, the water company, the digital, you know, etc., the local authorities, but there is no understanding at the moment how we look at those assets collectively, which then makes it more difficult if you haven't defined what your outcome is for resilience at the play scale. You don't know where your assets are, you don't know what your baseline is. How do you then achieve the outcome? How do you know what you've what you're working towards or what metrics are you working on collectively? Um, there was a discussion regarding um how do you measure progress? So there's a reference to adaptation pathways. Could that be one way to do this? So you set your your longer term goal, but you're kind of checking in on how how the uh the process is going and you are adapting as more information comes on board. Yeah but it really kind of came down to the first question around what is the baseline, what's the risk, what's the impact. And we're talking through um different parts of the country are clearly starting from different positions. So if you're in the Oxcam corridor, there's clearly different issues and drivers than whether or not you're in Greater Manstradicide.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah, yeah. Um a hugely fascinating topic, this one, and we could talk about this all day. Yes, um, uh, and and we've touched on it in many previous episodes of the podcast. Um, how do we measure resilience progress? Um, and you know, I have seen I have seen many models trying to explain this. Um, it can turn into a game of 3D chess if you're not careful. Um quite simply because resilience, climate resilience means different things to different stakeholders, different organizations. So actually tying down a unique set of definitions and then downstream from that uh a standardized set of uh indicators metrics is really tricky. Um, you know, and and I know organizations have done it for their own purpose, um, but um you know it it it remains um you know deeply sort of under discussion still. Um in JBA um we have five resilient themes, and these are resilient people, resilient places, resilient assets, resilient organizations, and resilient landscapes. And that describes, defines the outcomes from the work that we all do in JBA. So whether you're you know, whether you're a flood modeller, whether you're uh a design engineer for um you know uh a flood defence scheme, whether you work in sustainable drainage, property flood resilience, um, or even the environmental sector, so ecology, um river restoration, etc. Um, you know, our our resilience definitions and and how we measure progress in JBA is through those five those five pillars, people, places, assets, landscapes and organizations. Um but you know we're we're very different from GMCA, and we're very different in turn from Network Rail. You know, so it's it's really this it's hugely it's hugely uh complex. Um how how is how is progress measured in GMCA, David? And and what does what is what does good resilience look like in GMCA?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Well, I could tell you what we actually did talk around. We came down to the end about so we talked about social value. Yeah, so that is a key thing we we do measure in in the command authority, and that seems to be a common theme. So we're talking to each individual utility companies, and those are on the table talking about social value, is a key element. So it's not just about delivering infrastructure ticker box saying that's great infrastructure. How you what's the how many jobs being created, what's the wider environment improvement being being created? So we talked around Tom's metrics, someone was mentioned that, which is like themes, outcome measurements, and standards. Yeah, uh, but also it's like how are you going to communicate this to the public? How will it make their life better and different? So that's where it really came up to be um social value, but also the the group was talking through insurance companies now looking for costs and not just the cost but the benefits and common value framework. So uh there's reference to as a common value framework for the water sector's being produced, as a bit of a draft to work through. But again, it was noted that this is a common value framework for the water sector. So, not necessarily a common value framework for the water sector and others, but there seems to be clearly some traction in working through um what are the social benefits to communities by working together and collaborating. So, how will they know and feel and understand there are there are tangible benefits to their life from these multi-billion pound investment programs? And they actually want to know the residents and the local community want to know that we are actually collaborating together to deliver these benefits, not working in isolation. Because ultimately, like we start the call today, is bill payers taxpayer, is a general public paying for all this.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, yeah. Um, I really like that idea of using social value as a means, as a method to describe those resilient outcomes at a place. And and going back to the point you made earlier about you know aligning um place-based outcomes. I mean, ultimately, resilience is nothing if it's not going to improve the lives and livelihoods of people and place. So, actually, social value is a really good indicator of that in terms of well-being, jobs, um, you know, social capital, etc. Um, so it's a really nice way of doing that. I think there's a lot of work to be done still on that. Um, David, this is great. Um, really interested in seeing behind the curtain of this round table today. Um, it was um it was an invite-only event, so it's really great that we can share the uh the discussions that happened. Um we're sort of getting towards the end of the episode, but um I'm really interested if there was one main uh takeaway um that you're gonna take from the event today um and your participation in it. What would that be?

SPEAKER_01 32:09

I'd go back to the first point I said right at the beginning, it's clarity of purpose. Sorry, maybe one or two, three points, clarity of purpose, a clear evidence base of an outcome, and you do need some organization. I can I can say this from a GMCA perspective, who convenes the right partners together to give them that to agree this is our common purpose, this is the baseline, and we're gonna bring together individual organizations together to have that common value framework and and and drive forwards into that making sure we are delivering on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Brilliant. So there you are. Those are the those are the the concluding remarks. Clarity of purpose, clear outcome, and and and a convening potential to bring the right bodies together. Um, this has been a fascinating conversation. I've really enjoyed it. Um David, I know you're heading to um Flooding Coast tomorrow. We're recording this on Monday afternoon. I know you're heading there tomorrow. So I hope you have a good a good few days at conference. Um David Hotcroft, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks, Phil. Good stuff. So we've reached the end of our time today. If you've enjoyed listening, please hit the subscribe button so you're ready for our next episode in a month's time. And if you'd like to support the show, consider sharing it with others or leaving us a short review wherever you're listening. It really helps more people to discover and enjoy the podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm Phil Emerson, and you've been listening to the Climate Resilience Podcast brought to you by JVA Consulting.