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Infrastructure, Public Utilities and Spatial Developmentinfrastructure investment until there is a demand for it. Parties mayhave to take the risk of developing “stranded assets” to ensurefurther development follows. Therefore, infrastructure providersshould work together to avoid the possibility of the development ofa low level equilibrium of high prices and low demand as describedby the Council later in this chapter. As such, it is imperative thatgovernment departments and agencies put in place mechanisms toensure that the NSS is embedded into policy decision making. TheCouncil urges the necessary statutory and other mechanisms be putin place to ensure this happens.The NSS, translated into action and supplemented by local andregional plans and initiatives, provides us with the opportunity toplace the spatial dimension at the heart of infrastructural, enterprise,employment and settlement policies and to counter some of theuneven concentration of population and activities in the past. TheCouncil emphasises, however, that a wide variety of different agentswill be required to co-ordinate their approaches to development if abalanced regional approach is to succeed. Therefore working out theappropriate institutional arrangements will be a major challenge. Itwill include members of the development agencies, regional andlocal planners but also providers of the necessary communicationsinfrastructure, energy infrastructure, transport development andhigher education sector. The Council returns to the issue ofinstitutional arrangements in spatial development below.The Council believes that a national spatial strategy involves newapproaches at several levels: national strategic investment, regionalplanning and local government. There will have to be regionalplanning guidelines in all areas, following the example of theguidelines for the Greater Dublin Area and a harmonisation of areaboundaries across agencies. An integral part of the national spatialstrategy will be improved system of local government and changesto land use regulation.It is neither possible nor desirable to force a particular regionalpattern of development on Ireland. There are benefits to firms,workers and citizens from some concentration and from the servicesand facilities that can only be supplied to a critical mass. Some such449