Suffering in Salisbury...
Page 8
Page 9
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Karen Miles • Hauliers in Salisbury will be hit with a tough loading ban next week in a move which appears to ignore attempts by the industry to persuade councils to appreciate the lorry.
The access restriction, which starts on Monday (4 August), will make life harder for hauliers already facing the cancellation of the proposed Salisbury bypass. Trucks will he banned from unloading or loading on up to 10 streets in the city centre between 10:0016:00hrs Monday to Saturday.
"The idea is to prohibit vehicles over 7.5 tonnes loading and unloading between those hours," says David Feather of Wiltshire County Council. Council vehicles, including refuse collection trucks, will be exempt from the ban.
Feather denies the council is antilorry, pointing out that it will be taking on the environmental lobby over plans to build another link road to the Churchfields Industrial Estate to the west of Salisbury. But the ban has been condemned by the Freight Transport Association as "utter nonsense".
The FTA is currently running a project aimed at "trying to persuade other councils including Southampton, Chester and Aberdeen that lorries serving city centres are fulfilling a crucial business".
As part of this project a joint code of practice on urban lorry operation, developed by the FTA and local government, is due to be published in October. • A Skye haulier who refused to pay the Skye Bridge tolls as a protest has been forced to pay up.
Donnie MacLeod, managing director of Portree-based N&D MacLeod, had refused to pay the tolls for "a number of crossings" since Sheriff James Fraser's ruling last week in favour of two non-toll payers (CM 24 -30 July).
However, an appeal from the procurator fiscal against Sheriff Fraser's ruling_ was this week upheld at the Justiciary Appeal Court in Edinburgh. Macleod says: "I am very disappointed with the appeal court ruling that it is clear that the driver is liable to pay. We had not paid for quite a few crossings since Fraser's ruling but we have now resumed."
A spokesman for the Scottish Office welcomed the Appeal Court's decision. "We expect all law-abiding 1111114■1citizens using the bridge will now pay the tolls," he says. Ll Hauliers will face an indefinite period of disruption if crews of Caledonian MacBrayne carry out a threatened strike from 6 August over a "derisory 3% wage increase". A spokesman for the RMT union says that it is currently "locked in negotiations" with Cal-Mac management to avert the strike, which would see "services shut off".
Ferry services to Orkney and Shetland are to be maintained for the next five years following the Government's award of an £11m annual subsidy to P&O Scottish Ferries. The subsidy will be paid between 1 April 1997 and 31 March 2002; the cost of any safety modifications will also be met by the taxpayer. P&O Scottish Ferries managing director Terry Cairns, says: 'We look Forward to continuing our service to the vast number of hauliers who use our ferries to the Orkney and Shetland Islands."