0-licence controls worry industry
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DRAFT REGULATIONS on the environmental conditions to be attached to operators' licences were published last week, and have already run into criticism from the Freight Transport Association, writes ALAN MILLAR.
The Regulations, which will enact the industry's main "minus" part of the 38-tonne lorry package, specify the detail contained in the 1982 Transport Act. They were published before the General Election announcement and are not expected to be laid before Parliament until later this year.
While the Act stipulates that established reputable operators should not be put at risk by environmental conditions, the industry is still concerned that the draft Regulations could be unnecessarily onerous and may cause problems for both the industry and the Licensing Authorities.
They require LAs to attach conditions regulating: • The number, type, weight and size of vehicles or trailers which may at any one time be at any operating centre of the 0-licence holder for loading and offloading, maintenance, instructions being given to the driver, and parking.
• The parking arrangements at or near the operating centre.
• The times between which the licence holder may load and unload, maintain or move any vehicle or trailer, or instruct any driver or potential driver. • The means of access or egress to and from the centre.
• The nature of the business to be undertaken at the centre, including the movement or storage of goods there.
Factors to be taken into account by LAs are: • The nature of land near the operating centre and the effect the 0-licence application could have.
• The use and type of any existing or proposed building on the operating centre.
• The nature and times of the use or proposed use of any operating centre and any existing or proposed equipment there.
• The means or proposed means of access to and egress from the site, and the number, types, weight and size of vehicles to be used.
• The length of continuous use of the site by the 0-licence holder and the changes which have occurred in the use of land nearby and the nature, extent and conduct of business carried on at the site.
• Existing or proposed parking arrangements at or near the operating centre.
• The nature of the business to be carried on at any such centre, including the type of goods taken to, stored or removed from the site.
The ETA is to consult with its members over the next few months, to establish their detailed views of the draft Regulations, but the initial view of operations controller David Green this week was that they have been drafted too loosely and could create unnecessary problems.
He was particularly concerned that the controls on vehicles "at ony one time" at the operating centre could affect vehicles delivering to the premises, whereas the 1982 Act defines an operating centre as the place where vehicles are normally kept.
Similarly, the requirement to take account of the nature of business to be undertaken at an operating centre could sweep in such environmental complaints as those about noxious industrial processes which are not of a transport nature, Mr Green said the industry accepts that lorry parking represents 95 per cent of the environmental problem to be tackled by the Act, and he said the industry would be happier if the Regulations were drafted to achieve the solution of that problem.