ECF Social Infrastructure Webinar

ECF hosted a cross-jurisdictional webinar with speakers from Australia and the UK for a conversation on social infrastructure in the post-Covid world. ECF Chair Kathy Jones led the session.

The webinar began with Nick Yandle, Head of Programmes at Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) setting out the challenges and opportunities in delivering social infrastructure in the UK against a backdrop of increasing demand for school, healthcare, and prison provision.

Jonathan Cartledge, Director of Policy and Research at Infrastructure Australia highlighted the priorities and visions for reform as set out by the 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan. For social infrastructure, this talks of using social infrastructure to enhance quality of life, whilst also creating partnerships to build better communities and reframing social infrastructure as economic infrastructure.

Eugene Prinsloo, Development Director at Community Health Partnerships (CHP) provided an important contribution on the role of healthcare in social infrastructure, discussing plans for a New Hospital Building Programme which will comprise 40 new hospital facilities across England.

Anthony Manning of School Infrastructure NSW pointed to the role of Covid-19 in highlighting the importance of schools as facilities for encouraging social and economic cohesion. He also talked about how schools play a central role within local communities in New South Wales, both during the school day and after.

Chief Executive of LocatED Lara Newman rounded up the discussion by stressing the need for social infrastructure providers to delivery well thought through education-led mixed-use schemes, which places schools at the heart of their community. She argued schools should play a greater role in the communities within which they exist. 

This prompted an engaging Q&A with several contributions from the audience. Questions ranged from whether investment in social infrastructure lifts the value of surrounding assets and whether more capacity exists for delivering healthcare uses within mixed-use mixed use development schemes. The panellists also discussed how they would make the case for social infrastructure investment considering both countries worsening fiscal positions post-Covid.  

The webinar ended on a positive note as panellists argued more opportunities exist to collaborate across the UK and Australia, and that conversations between the various institutions within each country were ongoing.

A recording of the session is available here.