Government releases latest 30 year infrastructure plan

The 30 Year New Zealand Infrastructure Plan, released today, anticipates expenditure in the next ten years of around $110 billion.

Key challenges identified in the document are:

• high maintenance and renewal costs due to ageing infrastructure networks

• affordability constraints at both local and central government levels

• changes to infrastructure requirements due to the greying population

• uneven regional growth, with 92% of population growth to occur within just five regions

• the need for infrastructure to support higher productivity

• the pace of technological change

• the concentration of economic growth in certain regions, creating infrastructure "pinch
-points"

• the need for good international connections if New Zealand is to fully capitalise on the
emergence of Asia, and

• the pressures created by the effects of climate change and emerging natural resource
constraints.

The Action Plan to address these includes:

• developing national shared data standards for infrastructure and more transparent
pipeline data

• establishing regional centres of excellence, or similar, to support decision-making

• investigating options to support long-term, integrated regional infrastructure plans

• improving procurement governance, and

• developing a trans-Tasman procurement market with Australia.

ends