Asset Custodianship

Across much of the developed world, our civil infrastructure — the roads, bridges, drainage networks, and transport systems that underpin everyday public life — is ageing faster than we can maintain it.

Chronic underinvestment has compounded the problem over decades. Maintenance deferred, inspections skipped, repairs pushed to next year's budget cycle. The cumulative effect is an asset estate that is, in many places, at or beyond the point where traditional approaches — condition monitoring, compliance reporting, reactive repair — can keep pace with the rate of deterioration. Hard decisions are becoming emergency responses.

Asset Custodianship is a different way of thinking about the role. Not just maintaining assets, but safeguarding the systems they belong to. The Custodian's question is not "How bad is this defect?" but "What happens if this fails?" — and what can be done before it does. This shift from condition-focused to consequence-focused thinking is the foundation of the approach.

The paper below — co-authored with John Bennetts — sets out a practical framework for infrastructure professionals working in this reality: constrained budgets, ageing assets, imperfect data, and the expectation that critical systems just keep working.