Spending Review a ‘missed opportunity’ to support logistics industry, says UKWA

• Trade body for the warehouse sector – which employs 400,000 people – welcomes investment in housing, transport and energy

• Says Government must also support supply chains needed to deliver these investments

• Calls for more investment in planning and skills, to offset growing burdens on businesses

Responding to the publication of the Government’s Spending Review, Clare Bottle, UK Warehousing Association CEO, said:

“This Spending Review has turned out to be a missed opportunity to support the UK’s crucial logistics sector.

“Investment in housing, passenger transport, nuclear energy, and science and technology are all very welcome, but it’s vital that the Government also uses its power to enable the supply chains that underpin these sectors. Life sciences, defence and nuclear power, for example, have specialist transport and storage needs, while each new home needs to be served by 100 square feet of warehousing*.

“We’re hopeful the forthcoming Industrial Strategy will demonstrate a real understanding of the critical importance of logistics, but so far, unfortunately, the financial support just hasn’t been there. By withdrawing funding for Generation Logistics, ministers have shown that this very large sector, employing 400,000 people in warehouses alone, is not a priority for cash.

“For many of our members, the barriers to growth come from the state simply being too slow. Our members waste far too much time with applications for job-creating logistics hubs caught in the planning system. They have to wait, sometimes years, for the connections to the electricity grid needed for new warehouses. The same is true when installing solar panels on existing ones, which wasn’t referenced in the Spending Review. The business rates system, meanwhile, has been plagued by change and uncertainty.

“Ministers have been happy to ask for more from warehousing companies, in National Insurance, in business rates, in the Apprenticeship Levy, in planning fees. There are positive changes coming through, particularly in the planning system, but if the Government wants to increase the rate of growth, it has to put its money where its

mouth is – more planning officers, greater funding and flexibility for training in warehouses, and support for recruitment.”

*Research by Knight Frank suggests there is “109 sq ft of occupied industrial and logistics floorspace for each dwelling in the UK” – https://www.knightfrank.com/research/article/2024-01-18-households-and-their-logistics-needs