Coronavirus; what role will infrastructure play in our economic recovery?

Nick King said Network Rail has had to learn how to be smart and agile in its decision making, introducing timetables changes within days that usually take months and years to plan. This is likely to continue as the lockdown eases because social distancing “changes the concept of everything you do in a station.”

He also said that the demands of the current crisis shouldn’t make us forget the climate emergency, urging the industry  “to hold our nerve and absolutely remember that we will continue to have these challenges in the future and use this crisis to start to accelerate some of the other schemes that have an economic benefit as well as delivering a great environmental outcome.”

Dean Sporn said “people have been very, very surprised by how quickly places have repaired themselves” and “we should take these lessons” from this to push forward the sustainability agenda.