No plans for dedicated freight team for London, says TfL transport chief

TfL has "no plans" to reinstate a dedicated freight team for London, according to TfL transport commissioner Mike Brown.

Speaking at a session of the London Assembly’s transport committee last week, Brown said TfL’s decision to disband the freight team last year and embed its former members across the organisation is producing “significant progress”.

Brown was responding to the transport committee’s concerns that the lack of a dedicated freight team would impact on the delivery of London’s Freight Servicing Action Plan, which aims to cut the number of trucks in the city at peak times by 10% by 2026 and make freight journeys cleaner, safer and more efficient.

Brown confirmed he had "no plans" to restore the team and praised Alex Williams, TFL city planning director, who now oversees freight in London for making "significant progress in significant areas of the plan”.

“RHA and FTA are particularly positive about our new way of working,” he said, explaining that it allowed former freight team members to apply their skills more broadly to other related areas such as road capacity.

Brown added: “In many ways we are delivering better as a result of having a more matrixed organisation in the way we manage fleets.”

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However, FTA head of urban policy Natalie Chapman said disbanding the freight team had resulted in “a huge amount of experience and expertise being lost and that is a real shame”.

She called for more political leadership. “We have a cycling commissioner, a walking commissioner and even a night time commissioner for London so why can we not have a freight commissioner, when the delivery of goods and services into London is so important?”

RHA policy director Duncan Buchanan told motortranpsort.co.uk: “Freight has been side-lined in terms of expertise and knowledge for the past few years in TfL.

"There needs to be a vast improvement in the understanding and respect for freight activity in London with our authorities. Freight is essential for people and businesses – it needs to be accommodated across the infrastructure of the city. At the moment freight is seen by TfL as something to prevent, restrict or tax.”