Existing laws need to change before drone delivery can be rolled out in the UK, according to Co-op's head of online last mile and customer service.

Speaking at the Retail Technology Show in London on Thursday, Grace Wilkinson said current legislation prevents drones from flying over another person’s land without their permission.

“The number of households we would need to deliver to and the amount of volume to make that initiative work, you would have to fly over a lot of houses,” she said. “I don’t know how that will work without the laws changing to support that.”

The comments come after Amazon said last year that it would launch drone deliveries in the UK and other European countries by the end of 2024.

At the time Amazon said the drone deliveries would be folded into its existing fulfilment network and deployed from its same-day delivery sites in the new locations. The company did not disclose how its plans fit into existing British law.

The e-commerce giant has already started drone deliveries in certain areas of the US, including Arizona and Texas.

All-singing, all-dancing robots

Wilkinson also talked about Co-op’s robot delivery service with Starship Technologies, which has been rolled out in several locations in the UK, including Manchester, Leeds and Northampton in partnership with Starship.

As part of the service, customers can track the robot and choose a song the robot plays on arrival.

Wilkinson said the delivery service is changing the perception of robot technology as well as driving customer engagement.

“It’s a massive entertainment piece for children,” she said. “Pay the pound delivery to get a chocolate bar delivered with this, quite literally, all-singing all-dancing robot turning up on the drive.”

She added that after items had been delivered, children put drawings in the robots for staff at the Co-op and these are displayed in the store.

“Robots scare a lot of people, they have not had the best press,” Wilkinson said. “There is this feeling that they are going to take people’s jobs away.

“But that’s not the response we’ve had when we rolled out this service. We've had high engagement from communities and they see the benefits.”

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