Air quality campaigners have called on levelling up secretary Michael Gove to tighten up regulations around last-mile delivery depots.
The Lorax Initiative, which investigates the online delivery landscape, says that the lack of regulation of last-mile delivery depots – or ‘dark stores’ – is a hazard for vulnerable people in urban areas because they contribute to increases in traffic, congestion and pollution as well as a decline in business for locally-owned businesses.
The campaign, formed after a legal battle against delivery giant Ocado’s plan to open a depot next to a London primary school, recommends that new warehouses must be at least 400 metres from facilities including schools, hospitals and care homes.
In its report, Making Ecommerce Growth Green, the Lorax Initiative also said that local councils should require a full planning permission process for all new warehousing facilities.
Andrew Grieve, director of the Lorax Initiative and Senior Air Quality Analyst, School of Public Health, Imperial College London said: ‘The unregulated growth of dark stores and micro fulfilment centres can’t continue. We must look seriously at how we protect communities and the vulnerable from the rise of 24/7 warehouses and dark stores.
‘Michael Gove must ensure that levelling up is about health as well as wealth. There is space for such depots but in the right places.’
