The Telegraph reported that businessman Jonathan Oppenheimer has said Britain is ‘uninvestable’ because ‘straightforward projects can take decades to complete.’
Mr Oppenheimer, a billionaire with family links to a diamond mining dynasty, said the dualling of the A66 is a key example of this.
The road runs from Workington to Teesside in the North East, connecting the two coasts.
In 2002, plans were made to turn the stretch from Penrith to Scotch Corner into a dual carriageway.
The upgrades that will ‘shave 12 minutes off journeys’ were given the final green light this year. A campaign group lost its bid to challenge the dualling project in the high court in October 2024.
Mr Oppenheimer told the Bloomberg Africa Business Summit: “So long as the UK takes 30 years to do a nine-month project, it’s uninvestable.”
Oppenheimer has business interests across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet he has highlighted ‘cumbersome decision making’ and ‘project management issues’ in Britain, The Telegraph reported.
He said that because of slow decision-making and planning rules, it is not worth putting money into the UK.
