APPG Meets to Discuss Worker Facilities
On Tuesday 21st April, the APPG met to discuss the importance of improvements to worker facilities in addressing skills shortages faced by the logistics industry.
Transport Focus’ Katherine McGowan-Downey presented findings from the watchdog’s yearly Lorry Driver Facilities Survey. The group also heard from HGV operator Rhys Hackling of Direct Connect Logistics on the experiences of drivers on the ground.
Organisations in attendance included:
National Highways
Road Haulage Association
Logistics UK
British Association of Removers
UK Warehousing Association
Unite the Union
Freight Carbon Zero
Tesco
Flannery Plant Hire
AMCO
DHL
This meeting came a month after Freight and Logistics APPG Chair Rachel Taylor MP delivered a letter to the Prime Minister calling for action to improve roadside facilities.
The letter calls for the Government to:
Adopt additional wording in the National Planning Policy Framework and release a National Policy Statement outlining the infrastructure required by logistics with a particular emphasis on HGV parking provision.
Support motorway service area operators to implement minimum security standards - particularly those operating on government-owned land as a condition of their lease.
Provide a central source of information on lorry parking, hosted on GOV.UK and regularly updated by MHCLG and DfT.
Require local planning authorities to identify sites for lorry parking, alongside a presumption in favour of development for planning applications for lorry parking where sites have not been identified.
Mandate HGV parking provision as a consent condition for all major infrastructure schemes, including Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, as well as any local projects which are likely to increase the movements of goods vehicles, such as new logistics parks, distribution centres and major improvements to the local road network.