Alex Pocklington, Principal Network Impact Assessment Engineer at Croydon Council, presented at the CLOCS Conference 2019 on the 20th March 2019 in Birmingham. Alex discussed how the implementation of Construction Logistics Plans (CLPs) in Croydon has resulted in the increased volume of construction traffic being absorbed by the local area virtually ‘unnoticed’, and with zero complaints.
“Effective construction logistics plans (CLPs) continue to prove critical in enabling construction of Croydon’s £5bn growth zone without harm to the community. Central to this success has been Croydon Council’s setting of fair, balanced and proportionate requirements on developers accompanied by progressive collaborative enabling arrangements such as HGV holding bays and early delivery permits along with the mandated use of Croydon’s CL Navigation app.”
Croydon Town Centre is currently supporting 700 extra HGV trips per day, without any noted extra effect on traffic impacts. CLPs have allowed Croydon to:
- Control and fine-tune construction traffic to specific areas
- Apply specific reasonable restriction and regulation of construction traffic, onsite activity and impacts on traffic and the public highway. An effective CLP balances benefits to the LA and the developer such that they can become largely self-enforcing where the developer is competent.
- A CLP can be required by default via a Planning Condition. This makes it enforceable by the LA’s Planning Enforcement team and any highway officer assigned to sign off CLPs.
- LB Croydon refers to the CLP guidance document as the framework upon which a CLP should be built, with an additional guidance document for Croydon (specifically the Growth Zone) specifying local conditions for the borough. The specific conditions can be varied where appropriate between town centre and general developments. This avoids excessive workloads and ensures commonality across sites in the area.
- LB Croydon currently manages CLPs via a single officer with other duties. An experienced network management / highways officer (or officers) should be able to handle these duties without the need for additional resources. Their local knowledge also helps inform specific issues such as delivery routes in and out.
- Monitoring can be assisted by measures in the CLP (e.g CCTV cameras), supplemented by officer visits which should be being carried out anyway as part of regular planning enforcement.
- Enforcement can be carried out via regular planning enforcement measures as well as designated authority around CLPs in a formally laid out policy which allows measures up to site shut-downs.
For more information:
Construction Logistic Plans with CLOCS
