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"George Osborne announced in his autumn statement that £5bn in savings from departmental spending would be re-cycled into higher capital spending: it's as close as he will come publicly to admitting that the deep infrastructure cuts in 2010 were a mistake.
"... [But] repair and maintenance projects spend money faster, and create jobs more quickly, than building new.
"Repair and maintenance projects are open to more kinds of workers, spend less on equipment and more on wages, and spend less time on plans and permits. New capacity projects also require more funding for buying property, which has little stimulative or reinvestment value.
"... Yet Britain has always been a sucker for the big prestige project, that turns out to be either a colossal white elephant [Brent Cross's Living Bridge?] or so massively expensive that it crowds out more productive spending [Brent Cross expansion of retail, based on fresh consumer debt?]."
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