News / Freight Transport Association to become Logistics UK

© Gunay Aliyevs

The UK’s Freight Transport Association (FTA) is to become Logistics UK – part of its evolution to “represent all of logistics”.

Chief executive David Wells commended the FTA on its achievements to date, but added that “it’s important to understand how we achieve those policy wins”.

He said: “Our breadth, size and scale is unique and gives us strength and depth in expertise across important issues in all of the sectors we represent.

“Increasingly, policymakers and the media look to consult with organisations which can represent the whole sector. This has been especially important, and continues to be so, in our discussions around Brexit.”

He noted that over the decade he has helmed the FTA, “the industry has changed beyond all recognition”, and that the organisation should “continue to shape the industry of tomorrow”.

The policy team, said Mr Wells, was “one of the most influential of any business group, with contacts at all levels of government, and the personal relationships they have developed with opinion formers on all aspects of transport and logistics have enabled us to drive more than 70 quantifiable policy wins – on topics ranging from infrastructure to regulations, recruitment, the environment and the future shape of the industry – in the past year alone”.

Membership has increased by 25% over the past five years, and Mr Wells pledged that the association would not change its focus after the name change.

“Evolving our name is not something I or the board take lightly, but it’s something we believe is essential if FTA is to continue to grow and achieve more for its members in a fast-changing world.”

He supported the government’s plan to create a new ministerial role for the future of transport, which he said directly acknowledged “the interconnectedness of supply chains”.

The FTA added: “Efficient logistics is vital to keep the UK trading, directly having an impact on more than seven million people employed in the making, selling and moving of goods.

“With Brexit, new technology and other disruptive forces driving change in the way goods move across borders and through the supply chain, logistics has never been more important to UK plc.”