Cold Comfort
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LORD DERWENT was a little optimistic when he said in the House of Lords, last week, that commercial-vehicle operators would be much comforted" by the safeguards of their interests which the Minister of Transport proposed where local authorities took advantage of the powers given them by the Road Traffic and Road Improvements Bill to prohibit loading and unloading for more than six hours in any day. Admittedly, the Minister has agreed immediately to consult local authorities and operators' organizations on the subject. Moreover, a council would have to consider objections to an extended ban at a public inquiry and send a copy of the inspector's report to the Ministry at least a month before the date on which an order authorizing it was to be introduced.
The theory is that the Minister would be able to discuss the matter with the local authority if, in the words of Lord Chesham, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. "he thinks anything proposed goes beyond what is reasonable on traffic grounds." But how can the Minister, sitting in Whitehall, know the physical characteristics of a street in a small northern town,, and assess the effects of an all-day ban on loading, and unloading on the businesses of local traders and the concerns supplying and carrying for them?
Local authorities are obviously intended to use their new powers, otherwise they would not have been granted. But any effective safeguard for the interests of commercial-vehicle operators would completely nullify the provisions of the Bill. Nothing can ever justify the prohibition of loading and unloading for more than six hours a day, and no amount of reassurance will undo the damaging possibilities of a clauSe that should never have been enacted.