Infrastructure has been moving up the political agenda in recent years, with several reports calling for a more strategic approach. At the same time, the public has felt a growing disengagement from policy and a sense of exclusion from decision making, leading to a distrust of the motives behind infrastructure decisions.

This report sets out three fundamental problems with the current state of infrastructure decision making and makes three proposals for how these best be tackled:

1. A national strategic plan, supported by a new civil society advisory council
2. Spatial planning carried out at city and county level, informed by local public dialogues about infrastructure
3. A new body to be an impartial facilitator of public engagement