Object
Harborough Local Plan 2011-2031, Proposed Submission
Representation ID: 5410
Received: 30/10/2017
Respondent: Mr John Whitehead
Legally compliant? Yes
Sound? No
Duty to co-operate? Yes
My two points are:
(1) Lutterworth enjoys low unemployment and already seems to attract many workers form outside of Town, including most employees at Magna Park, therefore additional employment will merely increase commuting into Town
(2) If the warehouses are staffed by robots rather than humans (if not now but in the future), then potential employment would be rather less than quoted, although lorry numbers would be unaffected.
Lutterworth enjoys high employment, and observation suggests that lutterworth already supports many workers from outside of the Town, including most employees of Magna Park. Therefore, any increase in employment is likely to mainly increase commuting into Town rather than employing significantly more residents. Just even more traffic! But there is another point: how sure can we be that the warehouses will be fully staffed by humans? Already some companies are equipping their warehouses with robots to do the "picking", so there exists the possibility that the potential employment figures could be rather less than quoted, if not immediately then some time in the future. But robots will not affect the number of lorries.