🌍 CEFS Weekly Briefing | 23 February 2026

🎯 Resilience Versus Deferred Maintenance

Funding decisions, resilience gaps and policy reforms dominate this week’s stories. Governments are opening major grant streams and procurement frameworks while post‑incident reviews and climate briefings expose the costs of under‑investment and fragmented planning. Energy transmission projects race ahead in the UK, but U.S. roads and wildfire‑exposed communities show what happens when maintenance and systems thinking lag.

🔧 Reflect: Review one of your current asset or capital plans against this week’s themes: where are you implicitly betting on “run to failure” instead of funding timely resilience

🚀 Engineers who can read the policy winds and act before failure don’t just deliver projects — they quietly reset the risk profile of entire communities.

Top Articles this week 📅

 Planning, Policy & Power Moves 📰

FY 2026 National Infrastructure Investments (BUILD) grants opportunity announced (U.S. Department of Transportation – Grants.gov / Simpler Grants): USDOT has opened $1.5 billion in competitive National Infrastructure Investments for highway, bridge, transit, freight rail, port and intermodal projects, with typical awards up to $25 million. For civil engineers, this is a key window to align mature schemes with federal criteria around regional impact, multimodal connectivity and benefit–cost performance, and to ensure delivery strategies are grant‑ready. https://simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/4d8f5775-ff01-4a6f-ab4e-b125899043b3 

Opportunities and challenges for U.S. transportation infrastructure policy in 2026 (NAIOP): This analysis sets out federal transportation policy priorities and the drag created by short‑term funding extensions on long‑lead civil works. It underlines how uncertainty over user fees, congestion pricing and Highway Trust Fund solvency complicates long‑range planning for major highway and freight projects that practitioners are trying to programme over decades, not fiscal years. https://blog.naiop.org/2026/02/opportunities-and-challenges-for-transportation-infrastructure-policy-in-2026/ 

Changes to English planning rules proposed in new consultation (Pinsent Masons / Out-Law): Coverage of a fresh UK Government consultation signals potentially significant shifts in how viability, infrastructure contributions and strategic planning are handled in England. Project teams will need to watch how proposals on cross‑boundary planning and contributions crystallise into secondary legislation, as they will influence deliverability and risk profiles for major housing and infrastructure corridors. https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/changes-english-planning-rules-consultation-opens 

Cimate Resilience & Risk 💨

SADC deploys emergency response team to Madagascar after Cyclone Gezani damages critical infrastructure (SADC Secretariat): Tropical Cyclone Gezani has severely damaged homes, roads, bridges and critical infrastructure, affecting more than 400,000 people, prompting a regional emergency deployment. The mission’s focus on coordinated damage assessment, logistics and early recovery planning offers a live case study in how to structure post‑disaster infrastructure triage and prioritise resilient rebuilds in low‑resource settings. https://www.sadc.int/latest-news/sadc-deploys-emergency-response-team-madagascar-support-disaster-response-following 

Majuro Atoll and Palau recognized as “Tsunami Ready” communities (IOC‑UNESCO): Recognition of these Pacific communities under UNESCO’s Tsunami Ready Programme showcases a practical model for risk assessments, mapped evacuation routes, community education and warning communications. For coastal engineers and planners, it demonstrates how relatively low‑cost, non‑structural measures can materially reduce casualties and infrastructure damage when integrated into local development control. https://www.ioc.unesco.org/en/articles/majuro-and-palau-recognized-tsunami-ready 

Global climate disasters update underscores infrastructure vulnerability to extreme heat and sea-level rise (UNESCO‑affiliated climate resilience briefing): This situation update links recent extreme heat and coastal flooding to failures and stress in power, transport and water systems, and flags major gaps in early warning coverage. It reinforces the need to embed heat‑ and flood‑resilience into design standards and to couple physical interventions with better risk communication, especially in rapidly growing urban and coastal zones. https://unescoiran.com/global-climate-disasters-early-warnings-heat-resilience-feb-10-2026/ 

Energy infrastructure attacks during harsh winter expose Ukrainian civilians to extreme hardship (United Nations in Ukraine): UN reporting highlights systematic strikes on Ukraine’s power generation and distribution assets during an unusually harsh winter, leaving millions with intermittent heat and electricity. For infrastructure professionals, it underlines both the technical and ethical dimensions of designing networks with redundancy, rapid repairability and protection of civilian facilities under extreme conflict conditions. https://ukraine.un.org/en/310140-energy-attacks-amid-unusually-harsh-winter-are-exposing-ukraine%E2%80%99s-civilians-extreme-hardship 

Systems Under Strain 🔋

National Grid completes overhead line upgrade between Harker and the Scottish border (National Grid): National Grid has strengthened existing pylons, added new towers and integrated works with wider substation upgrades to boost cross‑border capacity between Scotland and northern England. The project illustrates how targeted refurbishment of existing 275–400 kV routes can unlock additional renewable transfer capacity and resilience without the lead‑time and opposition associated with entirely new corridors. https://www.nationalgrid.com/national-grid-completes-overhead-line-upgrade-between-harker-and-scottish-border 

National Grid launches procurement for substation construction and major electrical works (Find a Tender / National Grid): A new dynamic purchasing system has been issued for extensive AIS/GIS substation builds, extensions, reinforcement and asset replacement in live 132–400 kV environments across northern England. This framework will set the commercial and delivery context for a wave of reinforcement and connection schemes, creating opportunities but also demanding high competency in working around live transmission assets. https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/015074-2026?origin=SearchResults&p=1 

Programme document published for Eastern Green Link 3 & 4 HVDC cable projects (National Grid): An updated programme document details the development pathway for two Nationally Significant HVDC projects, including ~100 km of onshore underground cable per link, complex river and drainage crossings, and connections into a new 400 kV Walpole B substation. It offers a transparent view of routeing logic, consenting strategy and pre‑application engagement, useful for teams planning similarly large, linear energy infrastructure. https://www.nationalgrid.com/sites/default/files/documents/2026-02/EGL4-NGET-CONS-ZZ-ZZ-YE-001%20-%20Programme%20Document%20-%20Rev%2004%20-%20February%202026%20CLEAN.pdf 

Infrastructure in Motion 🚆

Federal Transit Administration invests nearly $390 million to revitalize aging bus infrastructure (U.S. Federal Transit Administration): FTA has awarded nearly $390 million across 34 projects in 19 states and Puerto Rico to replace and rehabilitate buses, depots and related facilities. Beyond fleet modernisation, the programme aims to improve safety, reliability and accessibility of bus networks, signalling to transit agencies and their consultants that shovel‑ready, asset‑focused proposals remain highly competitive in the current funding landscape. https://www.transit.dot.gov/about/news/federal-transit-administration-invests-nearly-390-million-revitalize-americas-aging 

Strategy, Leadership & Reform 📈

States are falling behind on roadway maintenance, analysis finds (The Pew Charitable Trusts): Pew’s modelling shows average pavement condition on U.S. state roads potentially dropping from 80% to 64% over ten years as maintenance under‑funding grows from $2.1 to $3.7 billion annually. The work quantifies how deferring preservation drives up life‑cycle costs and argues for asset‑management‑driven funding and a rebalancing away from expansion towards stewardship of existing networks. https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2026/02/states-are-falling-behind-on-roadway-maintenance 

Reports detail water infrastructure and emergency response failures during Palisades wildfire (Los Angeles Times): Post‑incident reviews of the 2025 Palisades wildfire reveal hydrants losing pressure and hillside tanks running dry due to aging pipes, limited redundancy and weak real‑time monitoring. The findings are feeding directly into Los Angeles’ Long‑Term Recovery Plan and underscore the importance of designing urban water systems explicitly for concurrent fire, power and evacuation stresses. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-02-19/long-awaited-reports-outline-problems-with-palisades-infrastructure •

Infrastructure funding strategies to build resilience highlighted for U.S. cities (National League of Cities): This briefing outlines how municipalities can blend federal grants, state programmes, municipal bonds and PPPs to address a $3.7 trillion infrastructure gap. It emphasises embedding climate resilience and equity criteria into capital plans, offering a practical governance lens for engineers seeking to align project pipelines with citywide fiscal and social priorities. https://www.nlc.org/article/2026/02/17/infrastructure-funding-smart-strategies-for-forging-resilience/ 

Consultation opens on areas for producing spatial development strategies (UK Government – DLUHC): The UK Government is consulting on which English areas can prepare statutory Spatial Development Strategies to coordinate housing, transport and infrastructure across local authority boundaries. For practitioners, SDS adoption could fundamentally reshape how strategic corridors and cross‑boundary infrastructure are planned, giving more certainty for long‑term phasing and land safeguarding. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/areas-for-producing-spatial-development-strategies/areas-for-producing-spatial-development-strategies 

2026 in construction: outlook on regulatory reform and infrastructure investment (Sharpe Pritchard): This legal briefing surveys expected UK developments around planning reform, the building safety regime and infrastructure investment within the 10‑Year Infrastructure Strategy. It highlights procurement, insolvency and risk‑allocation issues that public clients and contractors must actively manage, particularly on large capital programmes facing tight margins and evolving compliance duties. https://www.sharpepritchard.co.uk/latest-news/2026-in-construction-a-look-ahead/ 

Research that matters 🔬

Construction sector outlook: civil engineering growth and infrastructure prospects in 2026 (Atradius): Atradius projects modest civil engineering growth, supported by public infrastructure and energy‑transition spend, even as residential markets remain weaker. The report flags continuing risks from contractor insolvency, cost pressure and delays, but notes easing interest rates may improve financing, giving engineers and project owners a realistic macro backdrop for pipeline and capacity planning. https://atradius.us/knowledge-and-research/reports/industry-trends-construction-february-2026 

Headlines worth skimming this week 👀:

Disaster resilience news round-up highlights recent flood, storm and landslide impacts on infrastructure – https://disasterresiliencenews.com/2026/02/19/today-in-disaster-resilience-20-february-2026/ 

Spotlight on non-destructive strengthening techniques for historic stone beams – https://www.istructe.org/journal/volumes/volume-104-(2026)/issue-2/spotlight-on-structures-(february-2026)/