The World Ahead 2022
Boris Johnson’s infrastructure schemes will face opposition
Money will be in short supply, protests will not
BORIS JOHNSON wants to go down in history as a master builder. As mayor of London he pursued many costly transport schemes—and now political necessity is pushing him that way again. He has promised to “level up” Britain to secure old industrial seats won from Labour in 2019 by making poorer places better connected.
He has also pledged to make Britain greener. But if levelling up is to happen, then digging will have to start in 2022. And his plans are facing opposition from environmentalists and, perhaps more important, from his own treasury.
Heightened spending during the pandemic has made the treasury reluctant to spend more, forcing Mr Johnson to shelve some of his wilder plans, such as a tunnel between Northern Ireland and Scotland. He may also mothball the extension of a high-speed rail link, known as HS2, between Birmingham and Leeds, after projected costs rose from £33bn ($45bn) in 2012 to at least £108bn. This will cause political headaches, since northern Tory MPs wanted it to boost their hold on those former Labour seats.
Heightened spending during the pandemic has made the treasury reluctant to spend more
A series of road-building and energy projects will go ahead, including Stonehenge Tunnel and Lower Thames Crossing, two expensive new road projects. Work on a new electric-vehicle charging network will continue. Construction of Sizewell C, a nuclear power station in Suffolk, should start in 2022 if planning is approved. Firms can start bidding on the government’s new hydrogen fund, which aims to have 5GW of low-carbon hydrogen-production capacity by 2030 for industry and home heating.
Protests will dog some of these projects as activists seize on the government’s own target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. London is used to demonstrations, but in 2022 they will spread more widely. Master builders are never without their critics.
Elliott Kime: Britain correspondent, The Economist■
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2022 under the headline “Shovels at the ready”