Rail freight terminals and the case for place-based planning

Rail freight has long been treated as the “hidden” part of the transport system. While passengers dominate political and media debate, freight has been regarded as functional and peripheral: important, but rarely integrated into wider discussions about city growth and urban planning. This perception needs to change.

The UK Government has set a target of 75% growth in rail freight by 2050. Meeting this ambition will not be possible through network investment alone. It will require a shift in how we think about freight facilities within the urban and suburban fabric of the UK. Here, the concept of place-based planning offers an important framework.

What is place-based planning?

Place-based planning is an approach that begins with the specific characteristics, needs, and opportunities of a location, rather than applying standardised, top-down solutions. It brings together different strands of policy, transport, housing, economy, environment, health, around the distinctive ambitions of a place.

This way of thinking has gained increasing traction in regional planning. In London, regeneration schemes such as King’s Cross have been designed not simply as commercial developments but as new urban districts combining homes, offices, cultural venues, and transport. In Greater Manchester, devolved health and social care reforms have been framed as “place-based,” recognising the different challenges faced by each neighbourhood. In the West Midlands, investment in HS2 and Metro extensions has been explicitly linked to inclusive growth corridors, seeking to tie transport infrastructure to local economic and social outcomes.

Place-based planning, therefore, represents a way of ensuring that infrastructure contributes to the wider identity, prosperity, and sustainability of the areas it serves.

Why rail freight terminals matter

Rail freight terminals are uniquely suited to a place-based approach because of their fixed and enduring nature. While road haulage can adapt and relocate warehouses around motorway junctions, rail-connected terminals are physically tied to the network. Once lost to redevelopment, they are almost impossible to replace.

These sites should be viewed as long-term anchors of place. They are not merely operational nodes; they are assets that:

• Support the economy by supplying construction materials and consumer goods.
• Provide social value through jobs, apprenticeships, and supply chain activity.
• Contribute to environmental goals, with every freight train removing up to 76 lorries from the roads and cutting carbon emissions by up to 76 per cent compared with road haulage.
• Enable urban growth by supplying the stone, cement, and steel without which housing and infrastructure cannot be delivered.

Too often, however, freight terminals are seen as nuisances: noisy, land-hungry, and incompatible with regeneration. A place-based perspective enables them to be reframed as strategic assets that underpin the growth and sustainability of the wider city region.

The social and environmental dividend

The value of rail freight is often invisible in policy debates. Yet the benefits are tangible and wide-ranging. Socially, terminals provide stable employment, create opportunities for training, and generate economic activity in neighbourhoods that might otherwise lack investment. Environmentally, they play a critical role in decarbonisation. Mode shift from road to rail is one of the fastest and most effective ways to cut transport emissions. Terminals are also vital for reducing congestion and improving air quality in urban centres, where heavy lorries create disproportionate impacts on health and safety.

By embedding rail freight terminals in place-based planning frameworks, these dividends can be made visible and become part of the local narrative.

City-region illustrations

Examples across the UK show the applicability of this approach. In London, terminals at Barking and Wembley underpin the capital’s construction industry. Integrated into regeneration plans, they ensure that housing growth and decarbonisation objectives can be achieved together. In the West Midlands, proposals for new freight interchanges have been contentious, but a place-based approach offers the opportunity to balance local concerns with wider regional benefits, such as inclusive employment and cleaner logistics. In Greater Manchester, facilities at Trafford Park and Bredbury are essential gateways for the materials that sustain regional growth. By embedding them within the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework, these sites can be recognised not as land-use conflicts but as enablers of climate action and economic competitiveness.

Connecting local places to the national network

A central challenge is that while freight terminals are local and fixed, the rail network is national and shared with passengers. Operators require reliable capacity at commercially viable times if they are to offer services competitive with road haulage. Without certainty, customers will not switch.

This makes place-based planning doubly important. Local authorities can safeguard rail-connected land and integrate terminals into regeneration strategies, while national planning must ensure that network capacity is protected and enhanced. Together, this alignment can provide the conditions for freight growth.

Supporting the 75% growth target

Reaching the government’s target of 75% growth in rail freight will not be achieved through trains alone. It will require freight terminals to be safeguarded, upgraded, and integrated into city growth strategies. Place-based planning provides the framework to achieve this by:

• Protecting scarce rail-connected sites from redevelopment pressures.
• Embedding freight facilities within regeneration and housing strategies.
• Making the social and environmental benefits of rail freight visible and compelling.

Rail freight delivers far more than goods. It delivers cleaner air, safer roads, lower carbon emissions, resilient supply chains, and stable employment. The challenge is that these benefits are too often hidden.

By applying place-based planning, freight terminals can be recognised as long-term anchors of urban and regional growth. They can be designed as good neighbours, embedded within regeneration, and aligned with national network strategies. Doing so will not only support city-regions in achieving their growth and climate ambitions, but also provide the certainty operators need to invest and expand.

If the UK is to achieve its ambitious 75% growth target, rail freight must move from the margins of planning debates to the centre of place-based strategy. The places that embrace this approach will be the ones best equipped to grow sustainably, competitively, and resiliently in the decades ahead.

By Martin Bignell, Scottish and Northern Representative, RFG.