Deliveries, servicing and construction logistics in London

Policy T7 of the London Plan 2021 is the reason a London scheme needs a delivery and servicing plan, and a construction logistics plan as well on anything substantial. Both are documents the borough will condition, and both are usually written late, badly and by someone who was not involved in the layout. That is why servicing bays end up in positions no vehicle can reach.

The useful order is the opposite. Decide how the building will be serviced, draw it, then write the plan that describes what has been drawn.

What a delivery and servicing plan covers

A delivery and servicing plan describes how goods, waste, post and services reach the completed development, and how that is managed to limit effects on the street.

The content that boroughs expect:

• the expected delivery and servicing demand by use, with vehicle types and frequencies
• the servicing arrangement: off-street yard, on-street loading bay, dedicated layby or kerbside
• swept path drawings for the governing vehicle at each servicing point
• headroom, gradient and access control for any off-street yard
• the route vehicles take to and from the site, and the roads avoided
• booking, scheduling and consolidation measures
• delivery hours, and the amenity case for any outside normal hours
• waste storage, presentation and collection arrangements
• management responsibility and a review mechanism after occupation

Most of this is design rather than prose. Where a scheme has a mix of residential, retail and office, each use generates its own pattern, and the plan has to show that they do not all need the same bay at nine in the morning.

The waste element has to agree with the Waste Management Strategy. Two documents giving different bin numbers, or different collection positions, is the most common inconsistency in a London submission.

Construction logistics plans and their scope

A construction logistics plan deals with the build, not the operation, and it is a bigger document because it covers safety, routing and community effects over a period of years.

What it has to settle:

1. The construction programme phases and the vehicle movements each generates, with peak daily and peak hourly figures.
2. The routes to and from the site, agreed with the borough and, where the strategic network is involved, with Transport for London.
3. Site access points, gates, wheel washing, and the position of any holding area.
4. Whether vehicles will be held off site and called forward, and where.
5. Pedestrian and cycle management past the site, including any footway closure and its diversion.
6. Driver and vehicle safety standards required of hauliers.
7. Monitoring, reporting and the complaints procedure.

Where the site has no space for a holding area, call off arrangements and a booking system become the whole of the answer, and that needs a location for the holding area that actually exists. A plan that says vehicles will be held at a nearby location without naming one is not a plan.

The highway interface is normally delivered through a highway agreement, and on larger schemes the construction access itself may require works to the public highway. The content overlaps substantially with the Construction Traffic Management Plan that non-London authorities ask for, with the London version carrying more on safety standards and consolidation.

Vehicle and driver safety commitments

London has a specific framework for heavy vehicle safety, and boroughs expect schemes to commit to it rather than to describe it.

The two elements to address are the regulatory requirement and the voluntary standard. Heavy goods vehicles over a stated weight operating in London require a permit under the Direct Vision Standard, with a rating based on the driver's direct field of vision and a progressive safe system of measures where the rating is low. That is a regulatory requirement on the operator, not a planning matter, but a construction logistics plan should confirm that only compliant vehicles will be used.

Alongside it sit the industry standards on construction logistics and community safety, and on fleet operator recognition, which boroughs commonly require contractors to register with and work to. Name the standard and the commitment rather than gesturing at industry norms, because a condition requiring compliance with an unnamed standard is unenforceable.

Add the measures that make a difference on the ground: banksmen at the gate, no reversing onto the public highway, scheduled movements away from school opening and closing times, and a prohibition on idling.

Consolidation and booking systems

Consolidation is the measure boroughs push hardest and the one most often promised without detail.

Three versions exist and they are not equivalent. Consolidation of construction materials through a logistics centre, which reduces vehicle movements but requires a contract and a location. Consolidation of operational deliveries for a multi-tenant building, through a single goods-in point with onward distribution by trolley or cargo cycle. And last mile consolidation using cargo cycles for small parcels, which works well in central locations and badly where the cycle route does not exist.

Booking systems are more deliverable. A timed slot arrangement for the loading bay, operated by the building management, prevents vehicles waiting on the carriageway and is enforceable through the management agreement. Specify who operates it, how tenants access it, and what happens when a delivery arrives without a slot.

Where the site is in or near a designated industrial location, the broader question of where logistics activity happens at all comes up, and the policy framework for that is covered in industrial land in London: no net loss and SIL policy.

Servicing bays and the street design

The bay is where the plan meets the pavement, and the design decisions are specific.

Off-street service yards need a headroom allowance for the governing vehicle, a gate or shutter arrangement that does not require a vehicle to wait on the carriageway while it opens, a turning area so vehicles leave in forward gear, and a surface construction for the axle loads. A yard that requires a 10 metre rigid vehicle to reverse 30 metres from the street is not a yard.

On-street loading bays are a highway matter and require the borough's agreement, often with a traffic order. They take kerb space from parking, cycle parking or planting, and the borough will weigh that. A bay positioned on the far side of a cycle lane creates a conflict that an officer will refuse.

What the drawings have to show: bay dimensions, the swept path to and from it, the drag distance from the bay to the goods-in door, the gradient, and the relationship to the entrance, the crossing points and any cycle facility. Where the development is large enough for a Transport Assessment, the servicing arrangement belongs in it rather than in a separate document nobody cross references.

Monitoring and reporting obligations

Both plans are living documents, and the obligations attached to them run after occupation.

For a delivery and servicing plan the usual mechanism is a requirement to review within a stated period after occupation, to survey actual servicing activity, and to submit a revised plan if the measures are not working. That review is worth agreeing with a realistic trigger rather than an absolute standard, because actual demand rarely matches the forecast.

For a construction logistics plan the obligations are usually monthly reporting of vehicle movements, a complaints log with response times, and a liaison arrangement with residents. Some boroughs require a named logistics manager and contact details displayed at the site entrance.

Build the reporting into the contractor's appointment. A monitoring obligation that nobody has been engaged to discharge is a breach waiting to be discovered.

Securing the commitments by condition

Draft the conditions rather than inheriting them.

A pre-commencement condition requiring the construction logistics plan to be approved in writing is standard and appropriate, and the plan has to be deliverable at that stage, which means drafted during the application rather than after. A pre-occupation condition requiring the delivery and servicing plan is the usual counterpart. A condition fixing delivery hours should state the hours and allow for exceptions where the amenity case supports them.

Two conditions worth negotiating. One requiring approval of a construction logistics plan for each phase, rather than one plan for the whole build, which is more workable on a long programme. And one tying the monitoring review to a defined survey method, so that the review produces a comparable figure rather than an argument.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which transport and logistics documents a London scheme is likely to need.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. Delivery, servicing and construction logistics plans are usually expected to be prepared by a suitably qualified transport planner, and professional review is strongly advised.