This is totally wrong. It takes 5 years to get planning approval in UK, it takes 1 year in France. Tunnelling costs are 3x higher in Uk than in europe. Building a tram takes 3 times less. Lower Thames crossing has been in planning for 15 years and we have spent 300 million on lawyers, more than Norway has spent on building an actual tonnel of comparable size.
If UK has economy of France but infrastructure worse than Poland, maybe we are doing something dumb.
If USA has expensive insulin and poor Bulgaria has cheap insulin and it works just as well, maybe you are doing something dumb.
You can expand supply of housing in UK without damaging other sectors of economy: introduce statutory right to add an extra story on your op if your house. Remove green belt protections, introduce 1 month limit on review of any planning application, after which it is automatically granted if valid objection is not found.
Introduce a single planning portal and standardise software for planning applications across the whole country instead of every Shropshire and Wolverhampton having their own practices. Purchase perpetual license for such software as a country and make it freely available to every citizen.
Introduce favourable mortgages for self-building.
Produce detailed, pre-approved designs for standardised homes and bulk purchase materials or modular components for them.
Organise mass production of high-speed trams and make them available to local government with favourable, pre approved finance terms, so that larger areas of housing are accessible by high speed transport.
All of the above is implemented in different countries around the world, whether it’s France, China or someone else.
References:
https://www.britainremade.co.uk/building_transport_in_britai...
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/britains-infrastructure-is-too...