Big Picture Presents: Infrastructure and growth – myths and facts
Presented by Stephen Joseph OBE, Chief Executive Officer, Campaign for Better Transport
Wednesday 15th January 2014
Time: 5pm – 7pm (you must register for this seminar)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that any economy is in want of more infrastructure, and providing it is the route to growth. This has led to business groups and the government promoting big new transport infrastructure projects and seeking to reduce obstacles to these projects, and to development generally, supposedly caused by the planning system. But are these universal truths? Stephen Joseph will argue that in the case of transport – and in other areas – more infrastructure can be counter-productive to economic prosperity as well as to long term sustainability. Instead, better management of existing infrastructure, smaller scale infrastructure projects, longer term investment frameworks and a stronger rather than weaker planning system can facilitate sustainable economic prosperity.
Stephen Joseph has been executive director of Campaign for Better Transport since 1988. His wide-ranging expertise and contacts have helped to make the organisation the country’s leading transport NGO. The last 20-plus years have had many highlights for Stephen, including persuading the Treasury to cut the road-building programme in the 1990s, campaigning against the privatisation of the railways and running a Sardine Man campaign to highlight the overcrowded state of this country’s ‘sardine tin’ trains. He was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1996 for services to transport and the environment, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in November 2010.
When:
Wednesday 15th January 2014, from 5 to 7pm.
Where:
Hosted in the Stephen Lawrence Building, Room SL101, University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, London SE10 9LS
Registration is essential. To register please complete the online booking form http://www2.gre.ac.uk/about/schools/business/services/events/events/current/big-picture-seminar
The Landscape 