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Exposed! The scandal of truck parking in Britain
Page 30
Page 31
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Closing truck parks are leaving HGV drivers forced to stop by law stuck for a place to stay. Chris Tindall and David Harris report.
Few truck drivers need telling that it can be hard finding somewhere safe and legal to park .Truck parks that are decently equipped and properly secured have always been the exception rather than the rule, but a poor situation is becoming worse as parking areas are being shut all over the country — the latest casualty being in Epping Forest. Essex, with the council opting to sell the site for industrial use instead.
Professional associations for both hauliers and parking companies agree on the shortage, and all are lobbying the government for help but it is debatable whether it will listen.
The latest meeting of the Parking Forum, a group set up to deal with parking issues, went ahead on 17 September and one of the main topics of discussion was a paper on the plight of long-distance truck drivers in finding legal and secure parking places.
Port lost its park
Take Dover, for instance. Last year it lost its port HGV park, which was shut so that the harbour board could build another two ferry berths, together with their approach lanes.
The board did not have any room in which to provide alternative parking and although local company Priority Freight converted part of its large yard into a truck park. the capacity is much smaller than the old harbour site: 90 spaces as opposed to 240.
Occasionally the situation descends into farce. When Wyre Forest Council closed a truck park near Kidderminster, says Chrys Rampley, security and infrastruc t ure manager for the Road I Iaulage Association, hauliers were directed to another car park only to find it already had an HGV ban on it.
Trucks do not just need space, they also need security, both because operators naturally want to protect themselves from theft and because insurers sometimes insist on a secure site when valuable loads are being carried. To be a victim of theft is bad enough; to be one without valid insurance compounds the damage.
TruckPol,the new roadfreight crime unit of the Metropolitan police, has teamed up with Rampley to lobby the government to encourage more secure truck parks. Detective Sergeant Mark Hooper, head of the unit, says the best secure parking sites, such as the one in Ashford, Kent, stop truck crime almost completely But less secure HGV parks may be making life easier for thieves.
"It's like putting all your hens in one coop," says Hooper.
Another problem may be that some truck parks are in the wrong place. Rab Dickson, head of transportation strategy at Aberdeen City Council, warns that the council maybe forced to get rid of a truck park inAltens,an industrial estate in the city, because so few drivers use it.
Dickson says: "It was established in the '80s and never really experienced great numbers of drivers using it. It could take around 80 vehicles, but the average parking there was 10 or 11."
Lack of information
He that drivers may be unaware that the site exists because of poor marketing and a lack of information. He also claims changes in the industry and truck design mean drivers are more willing to sleep in their cabs and the charge for using the park is a disincentive — there are parts of the city where HGVs can park for free. In addition, the truck park surface is in such a poor condition it collects water when it rains. This leaves the east of Scotland conspicuously lacking in truck parks,apart from one in Dundee.
But Joan Williams at the Freight Transport Association believes that the underlying reason the council wants to close the park is that the land is valuable and could raise a lot of money from developers Dickson agrees that the area will be developed but says the city council. Aberdeenshire council and other local bodies are working hard as part of a Freight Quality Partnership to provide acceptable facilities for drivers and improve all aspects of moving freight in the city and surrounding area.
Legitimate concerns
Keith Banbury. chief executive of the British Parking Association (BPA), agrees that the lack of parking for trucks is a major problem.
He says: "We have all this legislation. including European law. saying that drivers can only drive for so long and must take certain amounts of rest. And then all the HGV parks are disappearing. Of course we recognise the legitimate concern of hauliers about this."
He has high hopes for the paper produced by the Parking Forum, which has already been submitted to the Department of Transport. It asks for a number of measures. including improved signs on motorways to tell drivers where to find the nearest truck park. Other suggestions are that the government conducts a study of current and anticipated demand for parking; a guide to promote good truck park design; and a secure HGV parking scheme to mirror the current secure car parking scheme.
Whatever happens, almost everyone in the haulage and parking business is united in the view that something needs to be done, given that drivers are finding fewer and fewer secure parking spaces every year.