2025: Ending freight blindness – what can local government do?
The Road Haulage Association’s round table was centred around the challenge of ending freight blindness and what local government can do to help the logistics industry serve our economic, community and net-zero goals.
The roundtable established the social and economic case for infrastructure development in the transportation and warehousing sector, and secured consensus on the changing perceptions of local government towards wider logistics as a growth sector.
However, a lack of visibility and understanding of the sector has led to poor integration of the needs of freight into local transport planning, particularly the importance of supply chains to our daily lives and the contributions of HGV drivers and logistics workers, particularly in times of crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic. A national figurehead to champion freight and logistics to strengthen engagement, sense-check policy and inject the needs of the logistics sector into strategic thinking would be beneficial.
The group found that the responsibilities for local government to provide economic development, capacity in social services and housing as competing interests for time and resource, and the private sector must continue to make the case for planning opportunities in the logistics sector in support of these aims. Moreover, central government has a role to play in guiding authorities to embrace growth sectors like logistics through land allocation, engagement and technological trialling in partnership with business ie, site-sharing for electric vehicles.
Moving forward, the group determined it is critical to:
a) strengthen existing data and analytical tools in the transportation space and methods of harvesting private data,
b) centre freight integration and multi-use developments ie, strategic lorry parking and charging infrastructure,
c) accountability for authorities to deliver growth catalysing projects,
d) strategic guidance from government and finally,
e) establishing regional needs profiles to determine necessary change for different economic environments and communities