Christian Green, Partner, Infrastructure at Carter Jonas comments on the Spending Review

“The Spending Review 2025 was positive for transport infrastructure investment, confirming funding allocations for several significant schemes. The host of announcements included funding allocations for transport projects within nine mayoral strategic authorities, with mayors now playing a central role in their planning and delivery.

“The Chancellor confirmed that in the coming weeks, she will set out the government’s plans to take forward Northern Powerhouse Rail and also indicated their 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy will be published later this month. This 10-year strategy will hopefully provide greater certainty on the Government’s priorities and how it intends to bring forward the broader Northern Powerhouse Rail programme.

“Perhaps the most important announcement was the proposed reforms to the Green Book, an HM Treasury guidance document used to evaluate and appraise public investment projects including transport. Many have argued for some time that this guidance focuses too heavily on narrow benefit-cost ratios, prioritising maximum economic return, which it is claimed has led to a disproportionate level of investment into London. Whilst we are still waiting to see the details of the planned reforms to this guidance, with an updated document due to be published at the start of next year, it has been stated that the new document will improve its guidance on how to appraise ‘transformational schemes’ with a new focus on ‘place-based business cases’. It is hoped that these reforms should give all regions a fair hearing particularly with regard to transport investment seen as crucial to many of the northern transport proposals including NPR.

“We await to see further detail of the government’s approach to transport investment in the coming months ahead.”