Heathrow Airport plans to establish four logistics hubs for offsite manufacturing. To promote its £16bn runway plans. In April it invited bids to host the hubs as part of its supply chain management plans. At least one will be as far away as Scotland, under a deal agreed with the Scottish government.

The response to that invitation appears to have been overwhelming, with 121 bids received from all over the United Kingdom.

Heathrow is looking to become the first major infrastructure project in the UK to pioneer the large-scale use of logistics hubs – aiming to build as much of the project off-site as possible. The hubs will work by pre-assembling components off-site before transporting them in consolidated loads to Heathrow on a just-in-time basis. [See our previous report here.]

Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “Expanding Heathrow is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to really boost growth across Britain – and not just with more capacity at the nation’s hub airport, but from building it. Over 100 communities across Britain have put themselves forward to host one of our pioneering logistics hubs and we couldn’t be more impressed by the applicants. Together we’ll build an expanded Heathrow – boosting growth outside London, leaving a world-class construction legacy for the UK and delivering expansion faster, cheaper and with less impact on our local communities.”

A shortlist of potential sites is expected to be announced later this year.