Ahead of the General election tomorrow, we are releasing the final episode in our mini- election special series. In this episode, Gareth Elliott, our Director of Policy and Communications, welcomes John Arnold, a veteran public affairs professional to give his take on the election and what it means for the infrastructure sector.

John Arnold is a Public Affairs Advisor who has been involved in politics for 30 years. His career started when he began working as the Chair of Labour Students in Scotland, and then as an adviser to a member of the Shadow Cabinet. John joins the series to share his expertise and discuss predictions for the election and considerations for future government policy towards infrastructure.

John reflects on the announcements made by all the major parties and in particular the central importance of the planning system and how these feeds into wider policy initiatives and ambitions.

Touching on Labour’s view on this, John said:

“Well, having spoken to senior people in the Labour Party and some of the policy people, it's clear that they recognise planning is a problem, that there are what we call bottlenecks in the system, which have led to huge, huge delays and therefore held back the productivity of the UK. You can't say, OK, it didn't, because they clearly have.”

He goes on to explain that the to deliver on proposed goals, the new government will need to make changes to the current planning regime.  It will need to formulate long-term plans across a number of sectors to provide stability and certainty and to act as an incentive to investment.

Visit the Mobile UK YouTube channel to watch the full episode here.

The Live Better Connected Podcast General Election mini-series continues, welcoming new guests to give us a bit of insight into what’s going on and tracking next week’s election.

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