It’s clear that 2018 is set to be another eventful year for infrastructure, with many business and political issues affecting the sector, says Andy Walker in his editor's comment in the latest edition of the magazine.

In my editor’s message this time last year, I said we’d be holding onto our hats as the industry grappled with a shedload of issues in 2017. Well, in 2018, that shed appears to have become somewhat larger with even more issues for the industry to deal with, in both the business and political arena.

The resignation of Andrew Adonis as chair of the National Infrastructure Commission (p3) presents the government with a challenge early in the New Year and they will have to move swiftly as well as knowledgeably to get the right replacement in place to maintain confidence in the sector and the UK’s infrastructure plans going forward.

Our industry should, however, continue to take heart from the fact that infrastructure is increasingly being seen by the government as a key driver of economic prosperity and this fact should ensure that the sector remains high in the headlines as well as in the thoughts of politicians across the political spectrum. With profile comes scrutiny and responsibility and 2018 needs to be a year when the industry takes meaningful steps to improve its productivity to justify the faith being shown in it.

This issue of the magazine includes a look at the prospects for the industry for 2018 (p4-5), the need for the public to be more involved in infrastructure planning (p8-9), Network Rail’s use of new technology (p14-15), smart cities and transport (p20-21) and we ask whether the chancellor’s 2017 budget will give a much-needed boost to house building (p16-17).

New ACE chair Mathew Riley waxes lyrical on the aforementioned industry productivity issue (p22-23) and we also report on a stunning new campaign to attract more women into engineering in an issue that is packed full of other interesting news and features from the world of infrastructure.

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