This week's special 151st episode was recorded in front of a live audience at last year’s brilliant Transforming Infrastructure Performance Summit hosted by Bentley Systems and the Institution of Civil Engineers in Toronto Canada.

In fact, right about the time this episode is published I will be in Melbourne helping the team to deliver the next event in this TIP series – so look out for podcast flowing out of that!

Back to this episode and my guest is Peter Weltman, Vice Chair of the Canada Infrastructure Council, Director at consultant Technomics and until 2023, Financial Accountability Officer for Ontario.

We discuss the critical issue of Housing-Enabling Infrastructure and its impact on the future of Canada’s Communities – and in particular the work being done to help Canada respond to its growing housing challenge,.

Because Canada’s housing challenge is not just about bricks and mortar - it’s about the infrastructure that makes communities liveable, sustainable, and connected. Roads, transit, water systems, energy grids, digital networks, and social infrastructure all form the backbone that enables housing to be built, scaled, and supported over the long term.

Without this foundation, new homes risk becoming isolated developments rather than thriving communities.

As population growth accelerates, climate shocks intensify, and affordability pressures mount, the question is not whether Canada needs more homes, but whether we can deliver the enabling infrastructure at the speed and scale required.

That means moving beyond fragmented planning toward coordinated investment, smarter regulation, and nation-building programs that unlock land and create confidence for both communities and private investors. The creation of the new Major Projects Office (MPO) should help by creating a single point of contact to get projects built faster – the question is how - and what needs to change first.

The Council is at the heart of shaping Canada’s infrastructure ambitions – we’ll hear how later on – and has just produced its first National Infrastructure Assessment report which I reckon will provide essential reading for all.

So lots to chat through, and I kicked off by asking why is infrastructure so critical to solving Canada’s housing challenge.

Resources

• Canadian Infrastructure Council
• CIC National Infrastructure Assessment report - Building Foundations for Tomorrow:
• Transforming Infrastructure Performance Toronto Summit
• Technomics website

This week's podcast celebrates the 150th episode by delving into one of the most urgent and complex issues that continues to challenge the UK construction sector – namely the critical shortage of skilled workers.

As we know, government plans to invest public and private funds worth over £725 billion in infrastructure over the next decade or so. That will decarbonise and secure our energy systems, reboot the nation’s transport networks, protect the environment, build 1.5 million new homes and retrofit some five million more.

The scale of ambition is enormous. But none of it can happen without the people needed to deliver it.

And that’s where the newly launched Construction Skills Mission Board comes in – bringing together senior industry leaders, educators, training bodies, government ministers and unions to ensure the sector can recruit, train and retain the workforce it needs to meet the demands of the decade ahead.

My guest today is Mark Reynolds, Chair of the Construction Leadership Council, Executive Chair of constriction giant Mace and also Chair of this new Construction Skills Mission Board.

Mark helped CLC to establish the board as a way to support the Government’s commitment to invest an additional £625 million in construction skills. And its inaugural meeting late last year was described as a pivotal moment that signalled a new level of urgency, coordination and commitment to solving one of construction’s greatest long-term challenges.

The goal is clear: to develop and drive a national strategy capable of recruiting an extra 100,000 workers each year. The focus is on five key levers: boosting employer confidence to invest, building clear entry pathways, improving access to training, ensuring effective funding and creating reliable, rewarding career structures.

So big ambitions but what’s next? Let hear more…

Resources

• Construction Skills Mission Board
• Construction Leadership Council
• Mace website
• Mace Group announces majority investment in Mace Consult from Goldman Sachs Alternatives
• Transforming Infrastructure Performance

In this week's episode we are seeking a new year parliamentary progress update to discover how 18 months of government infrastructure ambition is actually being turned into real economic and social growth potential.

To help me with this I am joined once again by Mike Reader, MP for Northampton South, the newly re-elected chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Infrastructure and Construction.

And, of course, as we heard in his first visit to the Infrastructure Podcast a year ago, before he was elected to parliament in July 2024, Mike was a director at construction giant Mace.

Well it is certainly an interesting moment for the sector. The UK entered the new year with infrastructure right at the centre of its growth strategy. Ministers are clear that better transport, energy, housing and digital networks are essential if we are to unlock regional productivity, raise living standards and support the transition to Net Zero.

As we have heard in so many episodes of the podcast, large projects are already under way - from new nuclear capacity and grid upgrades to major transport links and hospital programmes. And the pipeline is real and ready.

But the real test now is whether long-promised ambition can be converted into delivery, economic value, and public confidence.

At the same time, familiar structural challenges persist. Slow planning, skills shortages, fragmented procurement, high costs and stubbornly low productivity continue to constrain output. The housing crisis remains acute, energy infrastructure is racing against time, and the UK’s ageing assets demand smarter stewardship, not just new concrete.

Meanwhile technology, data and AI offer huge potential, but meaningful adoption depends on a stable pipeline and the right capability in the workforce.

So let’s get a progress update from the heart of power and explore whether government is actually now doing enough to provide long-term certainty, mobilise private investment, modernise delivery, and turn infrastructure ambition into real social and economic outcomes.

Resources

• Mike Reader MP website
• All Party Parliamentary Committee on Infrastructure
• Energy Security and Net Zero Committee
• Construction Leadership Council
• Transforming Infrastructure Performance
• Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development Committee

In this week's podcast we’re talking about the tricky challenge of safely managing and disposing of the UK’s expanding stock of nuclear waste. Creating a Geological Disposal Facility.

For more than 70 years, the UK has benefited from nuclear technology - generating low-carbon electricity, advancing medicine, supporting industry, and contributing to national defence.

Alongside those benefits comes responsibility.

Because the most hazardous radioactive wastes produced over those decades will remain radioactive for many thousands of years.

And while they are currently stored safely at a number of surface facilities across the country, - as we heard on the podcast in episode 126 last year – those stores require ongoing monitoring, management, and periodic rebuilding. They are secure for the short to medium term - but they are not permanent solutions.

My guests today are tackling that very issue. Malcolm Orford is Head of major permissions and Neil Hyatt, chief scientific advisor at Nuclear Waste Services who are leading the hugely ambitious and challenging project to develop a Geological Disposal Facility for long term disposal of this waste..

As we will hear, it is one of the largest environmental protection programmes in its history: a deep underground facility, between 200 and 1,000 metres below ground, designed to isolate higher-activity radioactive waste within engineered vaults and rock formations, using a multi-barrier system to keep it safely contained long after today’s institutions no longer exist.

Nuclear Waste Services is leading this programme on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Its dual challenge is to find a suitable geological site and identify a willing host community in which to embed the facility.

Progress is being made with community partnerships established in Cumbria, alongside extensive scientific evaluation, engineering studies, and international collaboration. But it all comes at a huge cost over vast timescales and in often uncharted technical grounds.

Resources

• Nuclear Waste Services
• The Geological Disposal Facility
• Video explaining the challenge
• Community engagement
• GDF benefits

In today's podcast we talk about skills and the challenge facing contractors to build a productive workforce fit for the future.

The UK is in the middle of a huge moment for infrastructure. Government has committed to a long-term national infrastructure strategy, has published a £725 billion pipeline, and repeated its commitments to “build for the future”.

All this points towards a sector finally moving beyond decades of stop-start investment.

Yet on the ground, delivery remains under pressure. Projects are competing for the same finite pool of people. Productivity stubbornly lags behind other sectors.

And despite tens of thousands of people entering construction-related training each year, too many never translate that training into long-term jobs.

Well my guest today is Matt Cannon, chief executive of major contracting group Clancy, someone who understands and faces this challenge - this fundamental tension - day in day out. So I hope he will give us something of a reality check.

Because while the industry is being asked to scale at pace, modernise how it builds, adopt digital tools, and deliver safer, more efficient outcomes, it continues to operate in a system that too often lacks long-term certainty.

Short forward order books, fragmented procurement, and a skills system that still leans heavily on supply rather than real demand continue to undermine confidence to invest in people.

In reality, before the industry can build a larger, more productive workforce, it must first build a safe one - getting more people on site today, working competently, consistently, and with confidence.

Apprenticeships and long-term training programmes are critical, but they take time to mature, and they rely on employers believing that work will still be there in two, five, or ten years’ time.

So the question is no longer whether skills matter - it’s whether the UK’s infrastructure system is set up to support the workforce it says it needs. And of course, what needs to change to turn ambition into delivery.

Let’s find out more from the coal face of contracting

Resources

• Clancy Group website
• UK government announces £600M investment in skills
• UK backs investment in technical colleges
• Vocational level training
• Construction Skills Mission Board demand led economy
• £725 billion infrastructure pipeline

In today’s podcast we explore the power of investment in infrastructure to change and improve people’s lives - every day.

My guest is David Porter, the newly installed 161st President of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a man who throughout his career, has had public service top of mind, top of his agenda and etched throughout everything he does.

As a career civil servant in Northern Ireland, he knows better than most how important it is to work with communities - - and of course how civil engineering and infrastructure shapes almost every aspect of daily life-from the water we drink and the energy that powers our homes, to the transport networks and flood defences that keep the country moving and safe.

And yet, despite its central role, and as David points out, the profession often struggles to explain its value, earn public trust, or influence the decisions that matter most.

But we need to meet that challenge. The UK faces ageing assets, a stretched public purse, ambitious net zero targets, rapid technological change and growing public scepticism about long-term investment.

At the same time, the civil engineering profession is grappling with skills shortages, questions of capability, and how best to deploy emerging tools like artificial intelligence responsibly.

In his inaugural address last November, David argued that civil engineers need to change how they talk about their work - moving away from technical language and towards a clearer focus on the services infrastructure provides and the societal outcomes it enables.

He has also challenged clients, institutions and engineers themselves to raise their game: to become better communicators, better decision-makers and better stewards of long-term public value.

So let’s deep deeper to find out how to ensure civil engineering and infrastructure truly serves society in the decades ahead.

Resources

• David Porter's ICE presidential address November 2025
• ICE website
• ICE President’s Future Leaders initiative
• Northern Ireland Department for Infrastructure
• Transforming Infrastructure Performance summit London 25
• Routes to ICE membership
• Volunteering with ICE

We kick off the Infrastructure Podcast for 2026 by talking about nuclear power and taking a close look at the much discussed - and much anticipated - small modular reactor programme being developed by Rolls Royce SMR.

My guest today is Ruth Todd CBE, Rolls-Royce SMR’s Operations and Supply Chain Director, the person charged with turning this long-standing ambition into a deliverable reality. And having led the UK’s hugely successful Covid Vaccine Task Force back in 2020/21 and worked on High Speed 2, Ruth is no stranger to a massive challenge.

Certainly, delivering new nuclear in the UK is up there in the league table of major challenges. As the recent Fingleton Review put it, the sector is facing strategic failure at a moment of national importance.

We are certainly at a moment of profound transition. The global energy system is under strain from rising prices, geopolitical uncertainty, and the urgent need to decarbonise.

But it is also true that the UK government has responded with one of the most ambitious interventions in its energy history: major investment in Sizewell C, fusion research, and crucially, £2.5bn to accelerate the development and deployment of SMRs.

And at the heart of this renewed ambition for a new “golden age of nuclear energy” is the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor programme - described as the UK’s first domestic nuclear technology in more than twenty years and designed to provide stable, affordable, emission-free energy for at least six decades.

Rolls-Royce SMR’s approach uses factory-built modules, a standardised design, and a turnkey engineering, manufacture and assembly model which aims to reduce the cost and delivery challenges that have plagued traditional large-scale nuclear projects. And it has the go-ahead to deploy the first three SMRs at Wylfa in Anglesey.

Each will capable of powering a million homes, with a design that is up to eighteen months ahead of any competitor in a European regulatory process. Which arguably means Rolls-Royce SMR now sits at the forefront of what could become one of the country’s most significant green export industries and the key to thousands of new skilled jobs and longlasting local legacy.

It's certainly an exciting moment - so let’s hear more

Resources

• Rolls Royce SMR
• UK Government nuclear July announcement
• UK and Czechia to lead global race on small modular reactors
• The Fingleton Review
• Announcement for Wylfa site
• Ruth Todd CBE

In this last episode of 2025 we once again look at Canada’s infrastructure market to compare and contrast the global scale of investment ambition on that side of the Atlantic.

As such, it is my pleasure to welcome Jennifer McKelvie, Member of Parliament for Ajax, Ontario, and former deputy mayor of Toronto who has without question emerged over the last few years as one of the leading voices helping to steer Canada’s infrastructure investment transformation.

So first some background: Canada stands at a pivotal moment in its infrastructure journey. From housing shortages and strained transit systems to the growing impacts of climate change, the country faces pressures that span geography, sectors, and generations.

Yet this moment is also one of enormous opportunity. With a renewed federal focus on nation-building, Canada is reshaping how it plans, finances, and delivers the infrastructure that underpins its future prosperity.

In her recent address to the Transforming Infrastructure Performance Summit hosted by Bentley Systems in Toronto, Jennifer outlined an ambitious vision for Canada to accelerate delivery of major projects, create of new federal agencies to drive housing supply, and strengthen the public-private partnership ecosystem.

Key initiatives such as the launch of the Major Projects Office, establishment of Build Canada Homes, and support for Canada Infrastructure Bank’s expanding footprint, underline this as a moment defined by scale, speed, and strategic intent.

And, of course, urgency - urgency to build and adapt in the face of an increasingly uncertain political relationship with the United States and to prepare communities for the climate realities already unfolding across the country.

Resources

• Jennifer McKelvie, Member of Parliament for Ajax, Ontario
• Canada Major Projects Office
• Build Canada Homes
• Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund
• Building Canada Strong
• Canada Public Transit Fund
• Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund
• Canada Infrastructure Bank
• Transforming Infrastructure Performance Summit Toronto 2025