Over recent years, UKREiiF has established itself as one of the UK’s most important convening points, bringing together local government, investors, and delivery partners to unlock the infrastructure our country so urgently needs. That success matters. Investment in infrastructure is critical to addressing the UK’s productivity and growth challenges, and it is central to delivering the quality of life our citizens need and the state must provide to maintain its legitimacy.

But UKREiiF now has the opportunity to play an even more significant leadership role. As we approach this year’s gathering, it can help shape not just deals, but direction,  elevating resilience as the defining national priority and making clear the critical role that local and regional infrastructure and local and regional government, must play in delivering it.

We have had warnings before. The financial crisis of 2007 and Covid were shocks that tested every aspect of our nation: our education system, our economy, housing, health, our democratic institutions, and our social bonds. In those moments, we had the opportunity to go beyond patching up the old structures and systems and instead confront their inherent weaknesses, rethink the fundamentals, and build something more resilient.

We did not take those opportunities. Too often, we reached for short-term fixes, restoring the status quo rather than reimagining it. The underlying vulnerabilities remained, leaving us exposed to the next shock.

Now it has arrived.

We are entering a period defined by instability. Global energy insecurity is no longer theoretical; it is a lived reality. Old assumptions are falling away. We can no longer take stable energy supply chains for granted. We can no longer assume geopolitical alignment will hold firm. Even long-standing alliances are subject to strain and unpredictability.

In this context, resilience must become a core organising principle of our national strategy. And to that end we must move beyond the familiar pattern of announcing funding pots and policy frameworks, and instead focus relentlessly on delivery.

This is where UKREiiF’s leadership matters. Because resilience cannot be delivered solely from the centre. Devolved leadership is not a “nice to have”. It is indispensable.

Yes, national government must provide the overarching frameworks: the grid, the regulatory environment, the strategic direction. But resilience is built in the real world, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city, region by region. It is built on the interdependent systems of energy, housing, transport, food and more.

UKREiiF presents an opportunity to rally local leaders, investors, and infrastructure providers around three critical priorities.

The first is simple, but too often overlooked: how do we build towns, cities, and regions that require less energy in the first place?

This is not an abstract idea. Reducing demand is not a secondary consideration. It is the foundation of resilience. More efficient buildings. Retrofitting homes at scale. Transport systems that are reliable, affordable, and viable alternatives to private car use. Urban design that supports density, active travel, and proximity, reducing the need for energy dependent movement altogether.

Alongside that, we must accelerate the deployment of local renewable energy and supporting infrastructure from solar to heat networks to ground and air source heat pumps. But the critical point is this: resilience is not just about what we build, but how we organise delivery.

Local, city, and regional leaders are uniquely placed to understand their own systems, their infrastructure gaps, their opportunities and the populations we must work with. They are where projects become real, where plans turn into investable pipelines, and investable pipelines into delivery. If we are serious about resilience, we must empower them accordingly.

That means ensuring cities can access the right finance, structured in the right way, at the right time. It means enabling them to develop investable, bankable propositions that can attract both public and private capital. And it means giving them the policy space and institutional capacity to act, not simply as delivery agents of national policy, but as leaders shaping and contributing to national strategy.

Done well, this creates a powerful alignment: local action driving national resilience.

UKREiiF is uniquely positioned to lead this shift. It is where capital meets capability, and where ideas move towards implementation. This year, it should also be where we sharpen our collective understanding of resilience and recognise that it will not be achieved without a step change in how we support and empower our cities.

The prize is significant. A country that uses less energy, generates more of its own, and is less exposed to external shocks. A country that is more productive, more secure, and better able to provide for its people.

That is not just an infrastructure agenda.

It is a national mission.

And it starts locally in real places.

By Lord Marvin Rees OBE