The Infrastructure Podcast

In this episode we take a close look at Thames Water’s proposed White Horse Reservoir in Oxfordshire – one of nine new storage schemes advancing under Ofwat’s PR24 plans to confront growing climate pressures, population growth, and the urgent need for long-term water security.
The investment is much needed. No new reservoirs have been built in the UK for more than 30 years leaving an potential shortfall of up to 5 billion litres a day in England by 2055,  according to Ofwat’s recent reporting. 
As if to highlight the challenge right now, Thames Water has this week announced a new hose pipe ban across the region. Clearly work needs to happen to reduce leakage but without new storage capacity we are heading for problems. 
My guest today is Nevil Muncaster, Strategic Water Resources Director at Thames Water and the man masterminding plans to tackle this challenge, including the £7.5 billion mega-project to build a 12 square kilometre reservoir near Abingdon. This facility is designed to hold 150 billion litres of water, drawn from the nearby River Thames during winter, and released to bolster supplies and secure drought resilience of up to 15 million people across London and the South East for the next century. 
Supporters call it a critical, non-negotiable insurance policy against a changing climate and a rapidly growing population.
However, the path to a 2040 opening is far from smooth. Local communities, environmental charities, and councils have raised fierce objections over its massive ecological footprint, carbon cost, and the disruption of local livelihoods. 
Add to that the multi-billion-pound pressure that the investment will add to Thames Water’s already precarious financial position, which see the company currently saddled with nearly £20 billion of debt and racing against a looming autumn cash-flow crisis.
So much to talk through as we explore progress toward Development Consent Order application for the project this year. 
Resources
Thames Water White Horse Reservoir 
Thames Water website
Ofwat Major Water Infrastructure Programme 
Ofwat RAPID
Government announcement on PR24
Independent Commission on Water - Sir Jon Cunliffe

In this episode we examine delivery progress on the multi-billion-pound strategy and pipeline underpinning the UK’s ambition to place infrastructure at the heart of economic, social and environmental growth across the nation. 
Last week, NISTA, the government’s National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority published its latest Major Projects Annual Report. This document offers a transparent look at the on-going £924 billion government project portfolio, tracking 189 of the UK’s most complex and ambitious initiatives, from nuclear power stations through to digital transformations.
Joining me to dissect these numbers and explain the bold delivery strategy is NISTA’s chief executive, Becky Wood, who has been at the helm of this organisation since June last year, shortly after it was formed, bringing together the National Infrastructure Commission and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority. Its role is help drive strategy and improve performance across this huge investment portfolio. 
Certainly this report highlights delivery progress but it also draws a line in the sand ahead of NISTA’s radical overhaul known as "Project Reset," which in April slashed its central oversight down to just 80 core, nationally significant projects and set out to demand sharper accountability and faster delivery.
So, the question is how will this renewed focus help turn around the sector’s lengthening major infrastructure delivery timelines; and how can NISTA use data and digital systems to salvage failing projects and maximise value from every pound of the taxpayer’s cash.
Resources
NISTA website
NISTA annual report 2025/26
Project Reset
10 Year Infrastructure Strategy
Infrastructure Pipeline

In this episode my guest is Milda Manomaityte, who stepped into the role of Chief Executive at the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) and its subsidiary, the Environmental Industries Commission (EIC) in March 2026.
According to publicity at the time, her appointment signalled “a gear change for ACE group” and a strategic pivot for its role leading the sector. 
Clearly that caught my eye – what indeed has Milda got up her sleeve to drag the engineering sector up the political agenda and into the 21st Century?
Well, given that the UK is about to be handed a new Prime Minister in the form of Andy Burnham, it seems a great moment to find out how an organisation like the ACE - which for over a century has been the voice of engineering consultancy - can ensure that this new administration makes the right decisions when it comes to the long-term planning and delivery of the UK’s critical infrastructure and for protecting and enhancing the natural environment around us.
Milda arrives uniquely equipped to meet these challenges. She spent the last seven years at the Railway Industry Association (RIA) - and we last on the podcast two years ago about driving innovation, performance, and digital transformation into that sector -  so she brings a track record of accelerating technology adoption and navigating complex government-industry relationships across rail.
And at ACE, her predecessor, Kate Jennings, successfully elevated the trade body's political profile and established an ambitious three-year business plan. Milda’s tenure begins at a watershed moment. The UK infrastructure landscape is being rapidly reshaped by the rollout of the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) overseeing the 10 year infrastructure strategy, and the delivery of an ambitious £720bn pipeline of work across energy, water, transport and of course housing. 
But the challenges are abundant – project delays due to funding constraints and planning problems, huge challenges meeting our decarbonisation goals, ongoing lack of skills and of course the looming threat of Artificial Intelligence threatening to soak up jobs across the entire engineering design sector. 
So lots to talk through
Resources
ACE website
EIC website
Milda on the Infrastructure Podcast June 2024
Railway Industry Association 
EIC Nature as Infrastructure campaign

In this episode  we are talking about electric vehicle charging and the challenge of creating the truly integrated and customer friendly charging network needed to support the growth of EVs
My guest  is Asif Ghafoor, chief executive of BE.EV, one of the UK’s leading charging networks and someone who I’d say is pretty out there when it comes to honest appraisals of the state of the EV market and the fragmented "wild west” charging networks that now litter out towns cities and service stations. 
I last spoke to Asif on the podcast three years ago in Episode 24 back in July 2023 -  seems like yesterday! But BE.EV is now five years ago, and arguable since we last spoke the sector finally starting to grow up- less of the “I’ll have a go” mentally; more strategic, customer and business focus.
Certainly BE.EV is expanding and leading the charge. In February this year Asif completed a landmark acquisition of European energy giant Mer’s UK public charging network, adding over 1,600 charging bays across 450+ sites and seeing the business effectively shift from its northern roots to become truly national networks with large numbers of charging sites added across the south and now boasting over 2,500 bays.
And still backed by Octopus Energy Generation’s Sky Fund, the company has established itself as the UK’s second top-rated rapid and ultra-rapid charging network, combining an impressive 99% reliability rate with a deeply customer-centric approach.
BE.EV also recently led a pioneering partnership with Leasing.com which integrated BE.EV directly into the consumer car-buying journey, demystifying public charging at the exact moment drivers choose their next vehicle.
BE.EV’s guiding philosophy remains fiercely simple: drivers shouldn’t have to become charging experts.
So let’s explore the reality behind these claims and headlines, find out what’s changed over the last five years and perhaps unpack how charging networks can actually still underpin the UK’s low carbon future. 
Resources
BE.EV website
SMMT statistics
Octopus Energy Generation
Episode 24 with Asif Ghafoor - "Building the EV revolution " - 2023
Times interview with Asif

In this episode we return to the critical issues surrounding the financing of infrastructure – and specifically how private investment can be levered in to support the global ambition for green energy transition.
It is clear that the global push toward net-zero is fundamentally a challenge of capital mobilisation. While global institutional investors sit on an estimated $100 trillion in assets, less than 5% of this wealth flows into sustainable or green development. 
This must change if governments around the world are to meet their ambitions for a green energy transition. 
My guest today is Georgie Skipper, the founder of infrastructure investment consultancy Lucetia, someone who has worked on one of most ambitious clean energy project ever attempted and who has spent the last few decades wrestling with the accelerating global green energy ambition. 
Because energy transition is a huge global challenge; according to a recent report by the Australian Government, the emerging South east Asian region alone faces an estimated $3 trillion infrastructure investment gap by 2040 in meeting it’s vital clean energy targets – targets that are crucial to the economy and its decarbonisation.
And this kind of investment gap is a global issue; one that she has been highlighting at the recent Financing the Energy Transition in Southeast Asia series hosted by Bentley Systems and Lucetia Group in partnership with the Investor Group on Climate Change.
The most recent of these meetings was held during the London Climate Action Week in June and before that at last year’s COP30 meeting in Belém, Brazil.
And it is these practical solutions and investment in so-called First of a kind technologies to bridge the gap between strategic policy intent and practical, on-the-ground project bankability, that Georgie hopes to employ to solve complex green investment challenges – not least given that Lucetia was recently appointed by Singapore’s Energy Market Authority to develop the policy and investment guidelines for a new submarine power cable. 
So let’s hear more about the market, the challenges, and we can smooth and derisk the global sustainable and green energy investment challenge.
Resources
Lucetia Group
IEA report of Southeast Asia energy
Transforming Infrastructure Performance summit
Investor Group on Climate Change
Australian Government report on SE Asian investment
World Meteorological Organization
Green Grids Initiative
SunCable project
MIT Sloane School of management