'Ten p.c. may not be enough'
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• His plea for a new look at costs and rates was already bearing fruit, the RHA national chairman said on Tuesday. Mr. Noel Wynn told East Midland area hauliers at their annual lunch that members who had really substantiated their case had persuaded customers that a rates increase of around 10 per cent was appropriate to meet cost increases over the past 12 months.
But Mr. Wynn warned that for some operators—notably in tipping—this increase could not make up for the lean years that had gone before. For such operators 10 per cent might not be enough. Time was running out for them, he asserted: the new standards demanded could not be reached on the kind of rates that were still far too prevalent. One of his aims as chairman would be to get a proper return for all members.
Replying to an invitation by Tory transport spokesman, Mr. Michael Heseltine, MP, to make known the R HA's views on future transport policy, MA Wynn said the industry primarily wished to be left alone. He hoped to see the Tories back in power, but their priorities should be to tackle taxation and the trade unions—from whose blackmailing activities road hauliers had recently suffered. The industry needed perhaps 10 years to settle down into its new pattern, without further upheavals.