Presidential Roundtable summary: what is the true cost of infrastructure failure?

Infrastructure failures expose critical vulnerabilities due to ageing, poor maintenance and extreme weather conditions. Repairing damage can cost exponentially more than preventing it.

Investing in infrastructure maintenance isn’t an expense, it’s a saving, economically, environmentally and socially.

Yet, infrastructure maintenance often goes unnoticed and is politically unattractive until failures or disasters bring it to the public's attention.

The consequences of not paying for maintenance aren’t always immediate. Maintenance not done today is a cost deferred to the future.

Making the case for investing in resilient infrastructure to policymakers and the public is challenging. However, various innovative solutions exist worldwide.

This roundtable, chaired by ICE President Prof Anusha Shah, explored the importance of infrastructure maintenance and the costs of inaction.

The discussion covered:

• Making a business case for maintenance and how political thinking and regulation should evolve.
• Translating the need for maintenance into the language and priorities of decision-makers.
• The importance of integrating nature-based solutions and adopting innovative financial approaches.
• Successful maintenance models and practices from around the world.
• The need for better public understanding and changing the narrative.

The ICE and the National Engineering Policy Centre have also launched a joint policy project, which will explore ‘why’ and ‘how’ and help make the case for maintenance in the UK.