Could people be banned from receiving parcels at work in central London by the London Assembly? In the face of increasing congestion brought about in a large part by delivery vans replacing cars as the main polluters in the city, Transport Commissioner Mike Brown blamed a surge in deliveries contributing to gridlock.

Brown recommended a ban on personal deliveries to London’s workers to the London Assembly members.
Currently average traffic speeds on some London streets has fallen to 3.5 mph, which is almost as slow as walking.
The GLA Transport Committee called on Mayor Sadiq Khan to introduce a trial ban among staff at London’s City Hall, as well as for TfL and London Fire Brigade to test the measures.

If this has any impact the pilot would then be rolled out to private sector workers.
Caroline Pidgeon, Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee said, “We need some bold measures. One of the things we’re calling for is the mayor to start with his own staff, the TfL and the wider GLA group to look at banning deliveries of personal goods to their work.

“We know there’s a cost to business actually of having to put more people into post rooms to deal with people’s personal deliveries. Everyone’s got to change their behaviour if we’re to tackle congestion and tackle this gridlock in London.

“And that means making sure perhaps you don’t have your parcels delivered to work.”

How this will be received by Londoners remains to be seen, though mid-term politicians can take extremely unpopular decisions and get away with it at the next election… 
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