The majority of people in the UK now see investment in renewable energy as the most essential kind of infrastructure, a new survey by YouGov has discovered.

YouGov carries out the regular infrastructure investment survey to gauge public reactions to planned government spending. In the latest edition, 2,015 people were asked to flag up and prioritise which type of infrastructure they personally believed to be the most important. These included areas such as rail, road, energy, airports, utilities, renewables and telecommunications.

The survey showed that 62% of respondents viewed renewable energy as being 'very important' for investment purposes - way ahead of utilities at 43% and rail investment at 40%. Airport investment was felt to be the least important area.

In fact, survey respondents showed that public appetite for airport investment was particularly low. With 40% saying that airport investment was not very important or not at all important (8%).

63% of people believed that the government should be responsible for investment in UK infrastructure, with some others believing that it should be driven by the private sector and 2% pointing to sovereign wealth funds. 27% admitted that they were unsure who was best placed to drive this kind of investment.

GLIL Infrastructure, who delivered the survey for YouGov, said that the UK had significant ambitions for infrastructure and that a strong case for this kind of investment skill existed during the Covid-19 pandemic as the economy prepared to get back on track and to position itself for the future.

Currently, the spokesman said, the government was directing its funds to business support, individual grant support and healthcare, but that there was a huge role for the private sector and pension schemes to step up and to help plug the funding gap to drive forward the country's recovery.