Building Our Quality of Life – ICE Northern Ireland

ICE Northern Ireland call on the Northern Ireland Assembly to invest in infrastructure and build our quality of life now and for future generations.

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Infrastructure improves lives, creates jobs and drives the economy forward.

Infrastructure is central to growth.

Investment in infrastructure has a ripple effect, with every £1 of investment generating £2.84 in the wider economy.

94 per cent of businesses cite quality of infrastructure as a decisive factor when planning future investment.

Civil engineers help to create the structures and systems that sustain society across Northern Ireland.

Amid a challenging fiscal climate, we must continue to invest in Northern Ireland’s infrastructure.

We need to think differently about how we fund and plan projects, what areas are most in need and how we attract and develop our best people to deliver.

We have ten recommendations for the next Assembly to ensure Northern Ireland’s infrastructure improves our quality of life.

To ensure delivery, we must:

Deliver key capital projects by May 2021. [project names on screen].

Establish the Central Procurement Delivery Service by December 2017.

And introduce domestic water charging by May 2019 to better protect the network and provide sustainable funds for future investment.

To safeguard resilience, we must:

Maintain our assets, focusing on our flood defences, water networks, roads and public transport.

Deliver the North-South Interconnector by May 2021.

And, deliver a publicly owned Energy from Waste (EfW) facility by May 2021.

To secure skills, we must:

Develop a civil engineering task group by December 2016 to address the future undersupply of civil engineers.

Establish a civil engineering apprenticeship by September 2016.

And, improve professional standards by recognising a range of new qualifications.

We encourage our leaders to focus on economic and social outcomes which are underpinned by invested capital and resource in infrastructure.

Let’s build our quality of life.

Let’s commit to infrastructure.

Join our campaign

To find out more, visit ice.org.uk