Thank you for downloading this program. In this edition of the bottom line, Evan Davis and guests discuss the difficulties of planning infrastructure and transport projects.

Hello and welcome to the program. Most of us plan our lives a few days in advance and work, we think perhaps a few months ahead.

And most of us negotiate with a few other people from time to time an employer or a

customer, for example. But today, we're talking about business life for those who have to think

decades ahead and have to deal with masses of different interests. My guests are all involved

in transport or infrastructure of one kind or another, and they'll tell us how they get things

done, or how they hope to get things done, because among my guests is the chief executive of high-speed two. So you know what I'm talking about. Let's meet my other guests, though, too. Firstly, Tashar Prabhu from a firm of consulting engineers, Pell Frischman. He's a board member there and one of the owners. Tell me a little about the company, Tashar. What do you do?

Pelfishman is a consulting engineering firm. So that means that we get involved in the design of large-scale projects.

These are in the infrastructure space. So we're talking about roads, some property projects, buildings, highways, water supply, all that kind of thing. Anything that's in the built environment that we tend to rely on when we navigate our lives. You don't get involved in the building of them. By basically once the drawings have been done, you're out of there, right? That's the theory, but there are many ways in which projects can actually happen. And actually, when you have a very big project project you tend to find that there can be changes

because it's intrinsically unpredictable things change it's a long period of time for a project

to happen so you tend to find that the designs are going on even while things are being

constructed you're based in the UK I am yes but your company works in India works all over

yes I think the way we're structured is that we work out of three hubs.

We have the UK, which is where the headquarters, and 88 years ago is where it all started. And then we have a Middle Eastern group, and then we have an Indian hub. And then any other projects in any other part of the world are done out of one of those three, or perhaps all of those three working together. Okay, well, also with us is Richard Deakin, who's the chief executive of Nats, which used to be National Air Traffic Services,

but as long since dispensed with that name, Richard, just fill everybody in on the structure

of this company because it was partially privatised a decade ago. Well, first of all, I'd say that

Nats is a fully privatised company.

The government owns 49%, but we do operate as a fully privatised company.

We're the provider in the UK of all the on-route air traffic control services for UK

airspace and for the North Atlantic.

We also look after the air traffic control services at 15 of the largest airports in the UK,

and we've got contracts in over 30 countries outside of the UK.

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