GLC won't budge on ban
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RENEWED REQUESTS to postpone the London lorry ban have been turned down by the Greater London Council, although the industry's trade associations say that operators cannot be ready for its introduction.
The ban is now less than two weeks away, but the GLC began sending out the plates, which have to be fitted to exempt vehicles, only on • Monday this week.
This. has led to Freight Transport Association director-general Garry Turvey writing to GLC Transport committee chair Dave Wetzel requesting a postponement of the January 31 planned introduction date.
And he asked Wetzel to postpone the ban until “all the necessary permits have been issued and operators have had sufficient time to take their vehicles off the road to fit the plates safely to them without disrupting essential operations".
But the GLC has turned down Turvey's request, which was also fully supported by the Road Haulage Association.
It says that whatever happens the scheme will come in on January 31. "We will send the permits and plates out by Red Star parcels if necessary to get them to operators in time," •GLC freight group planner Bob Carr told CM.
The GLC estimates that all the plates needed were sent out by the end of last week (January 17), and that they would try to get the plates to the biggest operators first.
• The London boroughs — which will each be responsible for administering the ban and issuing permits for their own area after the GLC's abolition — have at last begun to discuss the ban's fate after April 1.
Thirty of the 33 boroughs have now met with the GLC freight unit to discuss the problems involved. And the London Co-ordinating Committee, which was set up to over-view abolition, is to meet on January 29 to discuss the ban's future.
Westminster City Council is now carrying out a borough-by-borough survey of their intentions for continuing the ban after April 1. It should be presenting these views on January 29.
It has also recommended, in the light of these views, that the committee should consider the problems of administering the ban after the GLC.
This could involve just one borough taking over from the GLC.
• See p23