I hope you’ve settled into 2025 and are looking forward to the infrastructure year ahead.

I’m really excited to write to you as the new Chair of NIPA’s Board. I wanted to share some of the work I and the Board have been doing since I stepped into the role just before Christmas to strengthen NIPA’s offer to members, and provide a look ahead for the next few months.

Before I do that, can I say thank you on behalf of NIPA to Jan Bessell for her 3 years at the helm, and for enabling me to inherit a highly respected organisation and talented leadership group.

Can I also say a very heartfelt thank you for all the best wishes and support I’ve received. It means a lot and gives me the belief that we can continue to build a really strong community of practitioners in national infrastructure planning.

I’ve already seen a lot of enthusiasm for NIPA and I’m confident that we can build a culture that enables you as a member to play an active part, and supports you to grow your knowledge, skills and professional network.

Infrastructure is all go

As you will have seen from Government activity since December, we have plenty to get our teeth into, with more to come through the 10-year national infrastructure strategy and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Most notably the Plan for Change announced in December that set out the Government’s goal to determine 150 NSIP applications in this Parliament, means the spotlight will fall on all of us in practice.

NIPA is respected for the expertise and experience its members offer, and now is our opportunity to demonstrate how we can use that to good effect in the national interest. Making the most of our ability to convene diverse expertise, develop and share good practice, and build an evidence base to support national infrastructure planning policy will help sustain and grow our reputation whilst giving you direct benefits for your everyday practice.

In December, we were delighted to welcome Alicia Ford, Deputy Director for National Infrastructure at MHCLG to meet with the NIPA Board, the NIPA Council and Early Years Practitioners Steering Group to talk through the Plan for Change.

Listening to Alicia reinforced my view that we are moving into a new era in infrastructure planning, one that both recognises the value of the NSIP process and is open to challenging conventional thinking on what an effective planning process looks like for major infrastructure. It also reinforced my view that NIPA needs to continue to find ways to enable members to play an active part in developing practice and evidence to support policy-making.

NIPA’s leadership group

To achieve that, I’m looking to our leadership group to galvanise and reach out to members. NIPA’s leadership group is made up of the Board, the Council and the Early Years Practitioners Steering Group.

We have a recently refreshed NIPA Council, and I’d like to welcome all new Council members ahead of our first meeting of the year on Monday 27 January. Can I also say a sincere thank you to those who have stepped down from the Council, for your contributions to NIPA during your time. We are all volunteers, and NIPA is an organisation where it is a personal choice to join and play an active role, so I appreciate every minute that people give.

This leadership group will be working for and on behalf of you as members, steering us through what promises to be a dynamic time in national infrastructure planning. It’s personally important to me that members have confidence in us as a group and that every leadership role counts.

As part of that, I’m keen that we also support those of you who would like to be more involved in NIPA and develop leadership skills, especially if you are interested in applying for NIPA leadership roles in future.

Next Steps for NIPA

The wonderful thing about NIPA is that we are bursting with ideas, drawn from our everyday experiences, and when you attend one of our events this shines through. Our challenge is to find a way to harness and follow this through, for best effect.

So, we are now developing NIPA’s first strategic plan, the NIPA Plan, which will run to the end of 2027.

Our aim is to complete this by the end of March and launch the NIPA Plan in April. We will be launching a members survey in February to anchor the Plan in what you as members would like to see NIPA doing.

We will also be holding our first All Members call in mid-February to introduce members to our initial thinking on vision, values, priorities and how we propose to involve members in the delivery of the NIPA Plan, so please keep an eye out for an invitation.

In the meantime, we will continue to create activities such as our successful NIPA Matters webinars, research projects, breakfast shares and social events, whilst looking ahead to our set piece annual conference in July and annual dinner in November.

I hope you share my excitement and optimism for the NIPA year ahead, and I’d encourage you to get involved with NIPA and help grow our organisation, and share your ideas, requests and questions through our email address info@nipa-uk.org.

With best wishes

Tom

Tom Carpen, NIPA Board Chair