Greater Cambridge Local Plan Issues & Options 2020

Policy E/11 of the adopted Local Plan is inflexible and clearly ‘out of date’. The nature of the distribution sector has changed considerably over the last 30 years, as logistics have become more sophisticated in response to global trends and an increasingly demanding and complex market. Today’s industry is particularly affected by customer requirements for ‘just in time’ deliveries and the growth in internet shopping with its associated home deliveries. Activities within warehouses have equally changed, and where focus was previously on simple material stockholding, today’s warehouse can offer a range of services, providing consolidation opportunities, assembly and value-added service centres. Employment densities in the modern warehouse can now approach those of manufacturing, and whilst reliance on mechanised and computer picking systems increases, the required number of employees in such modern distribution facilities continues to grow. Job opportunities typically comprise a mix of professional, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled jobs. The importance of the logistics industry has long been recognised by the Government. In 2011, the Department for Transport in its “Logistics Growth Review”, highlighted the essential role of distribution in the UK economy. Paragraph 1 of this document states: “The logistics sector is a hugely important part of the UK economy. It is an important business in its own right, with the output of core logistics activities in 2009 accounting for almost 9% of UK GVA and around 7% of total employment. It is also a critically important enabler of the success of other businesses of all sizes and sectors - from corner shops to supermarkets, manufacturers to eBay entrepreneurs, and energy companies to waste businesses.” Paragraph 3 then states: “Facilitating conditions for growth in the logistics sector is therefore critical to the Government’s growth agenda”. By December 2014, the Government in its National Policy Statement for National Networks had further quantified the value of the industry: “The logistics industry, which directly employs over 2 million people across more than 190,000 companies generating over £90 billion annually underpins the efficient operation of most sectors of the wider national economy.” (paragraph 2.42) The NPPF singles out the storage and distribution sector as one of only three sectors for particular attention. Under the chapter title of ‘Building a Strong Competitive Economy’ and with regard to the identified requirement of the planning system to give significant weight to the need to support economic growth and productivity, paragraph 82 states: “Planning policies and decisions should recognise and address the specific locational requirements of different sectors. This includes making provision for clusters or networks of knowledge and data-driven, creative or high technology industries; and for storage and distribution operations at a variety of scales and in suitably accessible locations.” The storage and distribution service sector, therefore, is not only recognised as a key economic sector in its own right, employing high levels of people directly, but also its essential role in supporting other key sectors that rely on efficient movement of goods is widely acknowledged. The blanket restriction on large scale warehousing & logistics development set out in Policy E/11 is not sound and should be removed from the development plan.