Counties axe overloading checks
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• County trading standards chiefs are having to reduce their truck weighing activities by up to 75% because of crippling budget restrictions.
Cheshire, Kent and Warwickshire county councils have told Commercial Motor that they will have to make drastic cutbacks from April, when the new financial year begins. Local authorities have been hit particularly hard by difficulties in collecting the poll tax.
Another reason is that trading standards departments have had to take on new responsibilities for enforcing the Food Safety Act without a corresponding rise in staff levels or budgets, says Cheshire's chief trading standards officer Roger Manley.
Trading Standards departments have the power, along with police and traffic examiners, to check trucks for overloading — but it is not a statutory duty, says Manley, so vehicle checks are an obvious target for cuts.
The reductions in truck weighing by local authorities are sure to be politically sensitive. Several MPs are known to be concerned at a likely drop in prosecutions of lawbreaking hauliers.
CI Warwickshire will make a 75% cut in its overloading checks. "We're not cutting out road traffic completely, but it will bring us back to pre-1983
levels when we were given money to expand our road traffic duties," says a spokesman.
Checking trucks has been cost-effective in the past, he adds: "We kept a number of vehicles off the road that would have gone on overloaded. I don't want it broadcast, but we will be prosecuting fewer hauliers this year."
In 1989-90 the county checkweighed 3,477 vehicles: 240 were found to be breaking the law and 63 were impounded with 56 convictions. Total fines were 213,080.
El Kent will reduce its truck checking activities by 60%. The current level of about 100 spot check operations a year will be cut to about 40, says John Simmonds, the trading standards department's head of operations. The council has made five trading standards officers redundant since last year: "Weight checks next year will be at their lowest level since I joined in 1973," says Simmonds.
Kent has already had to close three trading standards offices because of cuts in its overall budget (CM 3-9 January).
▪ Cheshire County Council will have to trim .U0m from its overall budget over the next four year because of poll tax shortfalls,' says Roger Manley.
"One way to do this is to look at activities which are not mandatory, and in particular activities that are done jointly with other agencies," he says. "This includes overloading, under the Road Traffic Act. We are moving to totally eliminate road checking of vehicles. Directives on food safety and construction products have added to our workload," adds Manley. "I must find £100,000 to enforce the Food Safety Act, for instance. These are duties and are seen as being more important. It is of great regret to me and many of my members, but they say to me If you had to save such and such money, how would you do it?' Road traffic is not the first one to go and it is not the most serious."
The Association of County Councils says it is concerned about the cutbacks in lorry weighing by trading standards departments.
It fears that the haulage industry might come under increasing pressure to selfregulate to stamp out the number of overloaded trucks.
"One thing that would make sense would be to link road fund paid to the amount of damage done to infrastructure," says the ACC's Clive Grenyer. "The problem is that if trading standards do not carry out weight checks, councils end up paying for increased highway repairs. It is difficult to weigh up."