premium couriers would view such an approach as unacceptable, and so a question is whether the issues regarding air freight exist in the UK or were a solely Italian matter.

Receivers need a strong reason to fund an incoming logistics UCC. They have the purchasing power to do so, as exhibited in the trials seen, but often have not had the organisational appetite to carry the costs. Negotiated supplier price savings have not materialised (probably due to the lack of transparency in the cost/price relationship between the supplier and the carrier) and the known lack of price signals regarding the last mile. The Swedish model has shown that a solution is for public-funded bodies to completely take over the inbound logistics chain and require ‘ex-works’ or ‘ex-distribution centre’ pricing. This forces cost transparency and provides a fund to run tendered logistics operations. There may be potentially a need to resolve any concerns regarding the tendering of the logistics process, but this seems a strategy that could work. Public procurement is wider than the public sector alone, a body with high levels of public funding must comply, and the purchasing profession is chartered and capable of administering contracts. This would need a review and secondary or tertiary legislation/regulation to enforce across all bodies covered by public purchasing rules.

A lesser level of compulsion that would use public purchasing power not to take control of logistics but to set standards may have value. This might incorporate a new parameter into the FORS or ECOSTARS standards regarding utilisation. FORS is increasingly common in UK public procurement contracts. Use of such a revised standard could require suppliers to use logistics services with a proven and auditable level of utilisation, load factors or use of low or zero emission vehicles in cities. This would then act as a catalyst for the practice to spread across private businesses.

Most city centres are full of organisations covered by public purchasing institutions, councils, schools, universities, hospitals, and so on; and they represent a low-hanging fruit option for the trial; though one should accept that many larger retail organisations run efficient consolidated logistics chains into cities, as stated by Cherret et al. [88]

CCCs are potentially the most self-sustaining form of Urban Consolidation Centres and may require little legal regulation since the mandatory powers exist in the planning guidance, and once a clear signal is sent to the developers it can be cascaded through contracts. Currently, the sector still does not stack up against others when it comes to productivity performance. Studies estimate that transport and logistics could cut the total construction budget up to 20% by implementing a rigorous planning of logistics activities [82]. The lead taken by TfL and the growth of privately run viable CCCs in London suggest that it is strong policy guidance and education of the developer and construction sector that is needed to trigger a virtuous cycle.

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