Homes alone do not make communities: why logistics must be part of plan-making
When IMI announced plans for a new 105,000 square foot facility in Poole, the focus wasn’t really on a building, says Nigel Pugsley. It was on the 240 highly skilled engineering jobs at a company that has been part of the town for more than 60 years.
Without the right planning framework and enough employment land, those jobs would have been lost overseas. Instead, IMI is expanding close to its existing site, keeping investment and expertise local.
Yet too often developments like this are treated as secondary to housing. Employment land is squeezed as councils try to identify more sites for new homes. Industrial space is discussed only after housing allocations have already been made. By then, the debate is framed around what can be sacrificed.
That is a mistake.
Homes do not function in isolation. Communities need jobs, services, supply chains, deliveries and the businesses that keep local economies moving. They need logistics.
With debates on the UK Gigafactory Commission report Britain’s Battery Future and decarbonising data centres having taken place in Parliament recently, if the UK is serious about securing large-scale industrial investment, planning and grid systems must be ready in advance. Without them, those opportunities will simply go elsewhere. Logistics, energy capacity and industrial land are not secondary considerations. They are preconditions of delivery.
A permanent shift
Every new housing development creates its own need for parcel deliveries, construction materials, food distribution, servicing, maintenance and local employment. Britain delivered 4.2 billion parcels in 2024-25, four per cent more than during the pandemic peak of 2020-21. Last-mile van traffic reached 58.5 billion miles across Great Britain in 2024.
“The reality is that homes and logistics are inseparable“
Those figures are not temporary aftershocks from the pandemic. They are evidence of a permanent shift in how people live, work and consume.
The reality is that homes and logistics are inseparable. New communities generate demand. Effective logistics allow the economy to serve it. If local plans continue to approve housing without planning for the logistics facilities that support it, deliveries will simply travel further. That means more congestion, more emissions and more pressure on local roads.
The result is not less logistics. It is worse logistics.
A false choice
London offers a warning. The Greater London Authority has acknowledged that industrial land supply in the capital fell by 18 per cent between 2001 and 2020, largely to make way for housing. That may have delivered more homes, but it also intensified pressure on the remaining industrial sites and forced logistics activity into more distant locations.
How often is that same trade-off now being repeated elsewhere? Industrial land versus housing. Jobs versus homes. Warehouses versus communities.
It is a false choice.
The most successful places are those that plan for both. They recognise that employment space is not an obstacle to growth but a vital part of it, particularly as the UK seeks to position itself competitively in advanced manufacturing and energy-intensive industries.
Industrial and logistics development is not just about sheds and storage. It is about jobs, investment, resilience and the practical infrastructure that allows communities and the national economy to function.
National policy alone is not enough
The planning system is beginning to catch up. The draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) introduces the first freight and logistics-specific national policy, explicitly seeking to reduce the planning risks that have limited confidence and investment in the sector. It also proposes giving greater weight to the economic benefits of commercial and industrial development in planning decisions.
That is welcome, but national policy alone is not enough.
As highlighted in recent parliamentary debate, ambition alone will not secure investment. Gigafactories, advanced manufacturing and supply chain resilience all depend on whether sites are deliverable, whether grid connections, land allocations and planning frameworks are ready when investors need them.
The IMI project succeeded because those conditions existed. The company had the confidence that there was land available, that the planning framework supported expansion and that the site could be delivered in time to support future growth. This is where the role of experienced delivery partners becomes critical, bringing forward the sites, infrastructure and logistics capacity that underpin both housing and industrial growth.
“Ambition alone will not secure investment“
Local plans, spatial strategies and political decision-makers need to stop treating logistics as an afterthought. Too often, industrial land is only discussed once housing allocations have been made and the remaining sites are under pressure. Instead, logistics, along with the infrastructure required for industrial strategy, needs to be recognised at the beginning of the plan-making process.
Author:
Nigel Pugsley
Director
BA(Hons) PGDip MRTPI
nigel.pugsley@torandco.com