Most of these schemes have had high levels of a start- up public sector subsidy. This was often from an extended sequence of sources. They tended to achieve a low take- up amongst retailers. It is widely stated that retailers have been unwilling to pay extra for the consolidation service. They do, however, seem to have a niche providing close call- off stock for stores that are too small to hold stocks in store, and some small elements of added value services. Even with a strongly persuasive landlord on a busy street such as Regent Street, the operator of the scheme, Clipper Logistics, did not think that their share of all retail deliveries on Regent St was very large, probably less than \(20 - 30\%\) , and lower at Meadowhall [62].

Whilst not a legal compulsion, the payer of the final invoice has the contractual right to dictate the inbound logistics terms and conditions of supply, in that a supplier cannot maintain a business without meeting the needs of their customers. This can have greater compulsion than a parking regulation or a delivery access window. This is not, as explained by Verlinde et al [59], likely to happen organically since there is a disconnect between the three main actors in most UK logistics operations: the receiver (retailer/customer), the shipper (supplier) and the carrier (logistics operator) as shown in Figure 4 below. The contracts exist between receiver and shipper, between shipper and carrier, and therefore the parties to the transport operation usually have no contractual relationship in most urban settings.