Appraising the total value of infrastructure
At our third evidence session we were incredibly lucky to have three very contrasting perspectives of appraising infrastructure in very different settings; the public, regulated and private sectors. The funding driving projects differed significantly between presenters from city deal funding with strings attached, to user charges that were highly regulated, to private finance. Despite the very different finances, the messages were again remarkably clear; we need to capture a range of different forms of value; the process through which we appraise these values needs to change; the rules set at other scales (for example national governance or regulation) can make it hard to appraise projects how we’d like to; we may not have the perfect way to measure and compare values but we need to start with practical expediency and iterate our approaches as methods and skills evolve.