editorial comment l
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Peter MacLeod
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nce again, I find I am compelled to write a comment bemoaning the disparity between the economic picture painted in the popular media, and the impression I get from talking with the leading players in our
industry.This time, however, I’m going to abandon the idea of conspiracy theories, and just assume that the logistics industry is widely ignored by the government and media, and that any good news from our £15 billion industry just doesn’t register on the scale.
O
After all, for £15 billion, you can only fund one war (Iraq), or pay the bill for one- tenth of the country’s social security benefits, or build 10 state-of-the-art hospitals, or cover the projected rise in cost of public sector pensions before the recent cutbacks... The list goes on.
The announcement that the HS2 line is to get the go-ahead was made with much back-slapping and self-congratulating in Whitehall. The freight aspect of the venture was mentioned as a footnote, but the real focus was on moving passengers between London and Birmingham half an hour quicker than currently. When I called the HS2 press office, the lady I spoke with didn’t know where a freight interchange was to be sited, nor were any images of a freight train using the line available. That’s why we have illustrated our news story about HS2 this month with an image of a passenger train whizzing through the beautiful English countryside. No, this country doesn’t appreciate the benefit of an efficient logistics industry unless the ‘freight’ being moved is a potential voter.
The latest bit of good news you won’t read across the front pages of your daily newspaper is the state of the UK motor industry. We loved it when the workers went out on strike in the 70s; all those evocative scenes of long-haired, chain-smoking strikers made great headlines. We loved it when the Phoenix Consortium’s running of the MG Rover Group ended in administration and acrimony. We even reported as a bad thing the Japanese strategy of setting up auto manufacturing in the UK as a way to overcome import restrictions.
ABC
Well, to quote an old showbusiness joke, it’s taken the UK motor industry two decades to become an overnight success. Honda can’t build enough of the new Civic in Swindon; Caterpillar and JCB are both going great guns; Jaguar Land Rover’s investing in a new plant; Toyota, Nissan, Rolls-Royce... where do I stop? We built 5% more vehicles in 2011 than in 2010, and 75% of them are for export.
A strong manufacturing sector needs robust and efficient logistics to get everything to join up. Thankfully, the UK’s is the best in the world. Perhaps 2012 will be the year when our industry finally gains the recognition – and on the back of that the investment – it deserves.
logistics and materials handling
Peter MacLeod Editor
www.PressOnShD.com February 2012 ShD 7
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