ICE blast for UK's local transport and waste

The UK's infrastructure is still suffering from a lack of joined up thinking and has shown little improvement, an Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) report has revealed today (Tuesday).

In its The State of the Nation 2004 report ICE awarded overall infrastructure a 'poor' D+ score - the same grade as last year.

Transport has shown some improvement with a C grade scoring due to better relationships between the Highways Agency and its suppliers and the introduction of early contractor involvement schemes.

However, the report said that local transport was still suffering from a severe roads maintenance backlog.

The review also criticised the speed at which communities for the future were being developed - despite the government's plans to regenerate the Thames Gateway - and awarded it a D score.

To help tackle this the organisation has urged government to design and build more affordable houses for first time buyers.

Also scoring a grade D was the issue of waste. ICE pointed out that the UK generates 430m tones of waste - each year growing by 3% -5% - and that within the next 16 years the UK will need between 1,500 and 2,300 new facilities to treat, recycle and dispose of waste.

It warned that the 2010 deadline to reduce the amount of waste going into landfill sites was a crunch date and urged government to do more to tackle the issue as it takes five years to get a waste facility online.

The worst offender in the report was the area of energy, which was downgraded to a D score.
ICE revealed that the UK now faces a very tight 2010 Kyoto deadline to change the country's 35% use of coal and 22% use of nuclear to 17% and 16% respectively.