Ban threat to Crossbow
Page 8
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• A haulage firm which earns most of its business from picking up and unloading in London may close after being ordered to give 48 hours notice of using the city overnight or during the weekend.
The owner of Middlesexbased Crossbow Trucking is furious that the London Boroughs Transport Committee is refusing to renew ban exemption permits for its three trucks when they come up for renewal at the end of June.
"It's the last straw," says Dave Cockburn. "I'm seriously considering pulling out of haulage now. The business is hard enough already without the LBTC introducing its own petty rules, which make it even harder for us to do our job."
The LBTC has told him that his trucks make too few journeys to merit the full permit status the company has enjoyed for the past seven years—but it admits that there is no set limit.
Cockburn says that his trucks are making an average of three trips a week into London during restricted hours.
"It's a pain in the arse." he says. "Why should I have to fax or phone them every time I want to go into London? I might not have 48 hours' notice myself."
The LBTC says that of around 5,500 permit holders only 600 are asked to give 48 hours notice, and in emergencies permits can be issued with less notice.
But this does not satisfy Cockburn: "The whole scheme is a nonsense anyway, because anyone not needing to go through London uses the M25. No one in their right mind drives through London unless they have to."
He believes it's time for hauliers to fight the ban: "I don't know why hauliers don't make more noise and do something en masse. As a three-truck operation there's not an awful lot I can do — If I parked up on the MI in protest I'd get nicked. But if 1,000 drivers were to park up on a motorway one Sunday and switch off their truck engines it would have a great effect."
1:1 See Sound-Off, page 51.