Commenting on the newly published NISTA Major Projects Annual Report 2025-26, Alastair Meyers, Managing Director of Readymix and Mortars for Contracting at Holcim UK, finds that its findings makes for mixed reading.
The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) Major Projects Annual Report 2025-26, published last week, sets out the performance, status, and delivery confidence for the Government's Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) for the financial year April 2025 to March 2026.
While the report focuses on growing delivery confidence for the GMPP, with 189 projects rated as either ‘Green' or ‘Amber', its claims of planning reforms having accelerated timeframes on a wide scale deserve closer scrutiny.
Having only been founded just over a year ago, NISTA has already established itself as the central authority for major project assurance. This level of oversight is precisely what's needed to give clearer risk visibility and earlier warnings, both vital for keeping projects on time and within budget. We welcome the stronger culture of delivery that the government is pushing for through this initiative.
The report points to real delivery confidence in our national infrastructure, with 189 of the projects in the government's Major Projects Portfolio rated ‘Green' or ‘Amber', meaning delivery is likely or feasible. That list includes the Lower Thames Crossing, HS2 Phase 1, and Sizewell C, all projects Holcim UK is contributing low-carbon materials to. Projects at this scale give us the chance to show how sustainable materials and circular solutions can meaningfully cut the environmental impact of national infrastructure, while shortening supply routes to help keep timescales on track. NISTA also reports that 26 projects successfully exited the portfolio during the review period, adding to that sense of momentum.
But I don't share the report's confidence that planning reforms are accelerating delivery of critical infrastructure like homes and roads. The Future Homes Standard was published in March, and four months on, we've seen no discernible change in build-out rates or planning timescales on the ground. Housing completions are still being held up by the same bottlenecks they always were.
The UK's fiscal rules aren't helping either. They're necessary for market confidence, but in practice they've become the default reason to push long-term infrastructure investment further down the road. Add a string of governments that have each arrived with a new housing plan and left before it could take effect, and it's little wonder delivery confidence remains low on the ground, whatever this report suggests.
A new government gives us a genuine chance to break that cycle: fewer restarts, fewer reviews, and a plan that survives contact with a reshuffle. That's what the industry needs, not another document declaring the problem solved.
