WORK on the £250m ($377m) Allerton Waste Recovery Park in North Yorkshire was just months away from starting. The county council had given planning permission for the new incinerator and the government had confirmed that a public inquiry was not needed. Then, last month, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs decided it no longer needed to build the facility, or two others in West Yorkshire and Merseyside, in order to hit an EU waste target. It refused to authorise credits under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme to help pay for the project, leaving North Yorkshire council to wonder what the point of its five-year procurement process was. Britain's coalition government talks a lot about infrastructure. It has a wishlist of projects over 570 items long. Special funds have been created and investors cajoled. Complaining about the lack of "shovel-ready" projects to invest in, the Treasury has commissioned Lord Deighton, the man in charge of delivering the Olympics, to scrutinise the pipeline. Why, everyone wants to know, can't Britain build more? Simple cuts are partly to blame. Between 2009 and 2012 new orders for infrastructure and public projects excluding housing dropped in value by 33%. The government has retained big, high-profile schemes like Crossrail and High Speed 2 while ending some of the previous government's projects. The £55 billion Building Schools for the Future programme, with its 700-odd projects, was scrapped (and its successor, the Priority Schools Building programme, has yet to deliver any facilities). Various road-building schemes that were approaching shovel-readiness have been delayed. The postponed upgrading of the A21 road near Tonbridge in Kent, for example, is now being reappraised, and a public inquiry is due in May. Unfortunately, the passage of time means work must be redone on traffic counts and environmental surveys. Private investors are expected to stump up 64% of the £310 billion cost of the hundreds of projects on the government's wishlist. But they are leery. "Businesses do not have confidence that promised schemes will appear," says Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce. Having decided to reform the PFI system, the government took over two years to arrive at an alternative, PF2. A lot of investment dried up in the interim. Uncertainty is greatest in the energy industry, where big changes are afoot. Companies that might put money into electricity generation are waiting until more detail is provided about the prices that can be charged for low-carbon power. Interminable discussions with EDF, an energy company, about a price for the nuclear energy to be delivered from new reactors at Hinkley Point provide little reassurance. Investors must rely on the firm commitment of the government and its successors to the terms of the "contracts for difference" that guarantee prices. Events in Spain and Italy, where renewable subsidies were cut retrospectively, leave them wary. "Investors can see the opportunities," says Peter Atherton, a utilities analyst, "but they're worried about getting burned." In 2011 the government tried to nudge things along by identifying 40 "nationally significant" building projects. It also launched a £40 billion "UK Guarantee" aimed at helping important but stalled schemes to raise finance. It has notched up one success so far, agreeing a £1 billion loan and guarantee towards financing an extension of the Northern Line of the London Underground. A further £10 billion of projects have been "pre-qualified" as eligible for a guarantee, subject to due diligence. Ministries of all talents It is one thing to identify the right projects, though, and quite another to see them to fruition. The government's project management, which lacks private-sector rigour, is sometimes blamed for the slowness with which schemes become concrete and steel. One of Lord Deighton's first jobs is a "capability review" to see whether the civil servants in the government departments most obviously linked with infrastructure - transport, energy, culture and environment - have the necessary skills. But even the most capable civil servants can find their efforts to move projects along stymied by the planning system. A strict greenbelt policy restricts building around cities. Smaller schemes may suffer at the hands of local planning authorities, which lack incentives to push them through. Compared with other European countries, Britain does a poor job of compensating people who suffer because of developments nearby (see Bagehot). Although big projects like high-speed rail turn ministers" heads, smaller ones are collectively crucial. Prosaic schemes, particularly those involving maintenance and repairs, could provide large benefits to the economy, and quickly, with little planning hassle. "Give councils money to fill the holes in the road," says Tony Dolphin of IPPR, a think-tank. And improve signalling on the railways. The £170m that the Department for Transport has made available to local authorities for "pinch-point funding" is a step in the right direction. Sir John Armitt, who was commissioned by the Labour Party to lead a review of long-term infrastructure planning, advocates "hundreds of school and hospital extensions" that local people can get behind. The success of the London Olympics shows that Britain can build infrastructure punctually if the money and the will are there. And in things like water management and broadband provision, the country is well served. But dithering is all too often the main activity, as the rows over airport capacity in the south-east show. The government could start by selecting a few projects - say four of the top 40 - and doing all that is needed to get the diggers out of the garage. It is easy to cut infrastructure projects that have not started and from which benefits have not been felt. Time to show some commitment.