INSULT TO INJURY
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• Forcing truck operators to pay for the privilege of driving through London is a prime example of adding insult to injury. As one angry operator told CM "... the haulage industry is already in recession and this will have more of a depressing effect".
Of course the London Boroughs Transport Committee has never been too worried about what effect the London lorry ban has on operators. That's why it fought so hard to keep its infamous clause on mandatory air brake hush kits in the permit application process. That move has already cost the road haulage industry and London residents a fortune in legal fees.
If the LBTC gets its way on permit fees then in effect London's major thoroughfares will become nighttime toll roads. How else do you describe a system whereby you have to pay to be able to use a road?
What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. At a time when our city centres are choked solid by commuters using private cars, shouldn't people like the LBTC be looking at penalising them, instead of hauliers carrying essential supplies to shops, factories and hospitals?
A lot of people have had their say about the London Lorry Ban: the one group we haven't heard from is the capital's residents. Thanks to the ban they are supposed to have gained in the "quality of life" department.
Yet Hillingdon is pulling out of the scheme because it has caused "no measurable reduction in heavy lorry traffic." Who's kidding who?