Introduction
Overview
Our ambition for freight in East Sussex is to support the efficient movement of goods. Freight is critical to people’s everyday lives through the movement of goods to shops and businesses, our homes and local collection points, and in supporting the growing expectation of on-demand deliveries.
The East Sussex Freight Strategy 2025 – 2050 builds on the vision outlined in the fourth East Sussex Local Transport Plan (LTP4), which embraces a ‘planning for people and places’ approach. For freight, this means:
- Improving the operational efficiency and capacity of the freight and logistics sector;
- Reducing the wider environmental impacts of the freight sector, including impacts on people and communities, noise levels, and, informal lorry parking occurring within industrial estates and/or residential areas;
- Reducing safety risks to other road users produced by freight transport, by reducing the likelihood of conflict between strategic freight movements and local, active travel movements;
- Integrating logistics into the development of local plan process by utilising reliable data from the freight sector;
- Growing the size of, and employment within, the freight and logistics sector;
- Improving connectivity to/from the south east’s international gateways, including Newhaven Port; and
- Reducing the environmental impact of the freight sector by achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest, as well as reducing air pollution associated with freight transport.
- This strategy and action plan specifically focuses on:
- The management of the distribution of goods and services across the county and beyond, and
- The differing roles that East Sussex County Council and key partners have in either influencing or delivering improvements or supporting innovation.
Key partners include freight industry suppliers and customers, private sector freight and logistics operators, local businesses and end-users, National Highways (NH), Network Rail (NR), (and the emerging Great British Railways - GBR), Transport for the South East (TfSE), and other national, local, public and private sector entities.
The strategy recognises the emerging changes in local government, with the establishment of the MCCA for Sussex and Brighton, with elections for a Mayor in May 2026. This is alongside the creation of new unitary authorities across the West Sussex, Brighton & Hove and East Sussex geography. In East Sussex, this would mean moving away from the current two-tier model of county council (East Sussex County Council) and borough or district councils (Eastbourne, Hastings, Lewes, Rother and Wealden) to a single-tier authority, with the district and boroughs becoming the responsibility of the unitary authority moving forward. The changes to, and reorganisation of, local government, are likely to take place up to 2028.
Purpose of this strategy
The East Sussex Freight Strategy sets out our vision for the delivery of improvements to the movement of freight in East Sussex, and focuses on four priority investment areas:
- Priority Investment Area 1- Strategic freight movements
- Priority Investment Area 2 – Decarbonisation
- Priority Investment Area 3 – Last mile logistics
- Priority Investment Area 4 – Planning & policy
East Sussex Local Transport Plan 4
Local Transport Plans (LTPs) are a requirement of the Transport Act 2000. As part of the fourth East Sussex LTP (LTP4), this (supporting) Freight Strategy for the county has been developed.
As set out in LTP4, the vision for transport in East Sussex is:
“An inclusive transport system that connects people and places, is decarbonised, safer, resilient, and supports our natural environment, communities, and businesses to be healthy, thrive and prosper.”
Six objectives have been identified in LTP4, each with their own outcomes. These also underpin the Freight Strategy, and are:
- Objective 1: Deliver safer and accessible journeys
- Objective 2: Support healthier lifestyles and communities
- Objective 3: Decarbonise transport and travel
- Objective 4: Conserve and enhance our local environment
- Objective 5: Support sustainable economic growth
- Objective 6: Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks
LTP4 identifies the ambitions for East Sussex and recommends the key policies to achieve these. Each policy is underpinned by one of the above objectives and these are themed in the LTP4 Investment Plan.
The ‘Keeping East Sussex connected’ chapter of LTP4 outlines policy ambitions applicable to freight, alongside available evidence. This ambitions include supporting the movement of people and goods, ensuring they get where they need to go, quickly and reliably. The policies included in this section which support objectives 3, 5 and 6, are:
Freight Strategy: Relationship with LTP4 and modal strategies
This Freight Strategy is a supporting document to the overarching East Sussex LTP4 county-wide transport strategy, and complements the other modal strategies which sit alongside it.
- Bus Service Improvement Plan – buses play an important role in allowing people to access jobs, including those in the freight and logistics industry. They allow people to access drop-off and pick-up locations of goods, including via shops/businesses.
- Electric Vehicle Strategy (under development)– focuses on rolling out electric vehicle charging in public locations for smaller vehicles (e.g. cars and LGVs).
- Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan – concerns active travel (walking, wheeling and cycling) aspect of journeys, whether that be the sole mode of transport (i.e. walking to the shops) or as part of an integrated multi-modal journey (i.e. between home and the bus stop, or the railway station and town centre shops). There is an opportunity for cargo bikes and the delivery of goods to be made using active travel modes.
- Rail Strategy – concerns the movement of people and goods via the rail network). Interfaces at freight terminals and the transfer of goods between rail and other modes is also considered.