Hauliers face paying for London lorry ban
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by I Rob Willock • Hauliers will be charged .1.15 for every truck they send into London at night if the Department of Transport approves a scheme to force them to pay the administrative costs of the London lorry ban. The DOT rejected this idea in 1992 as "inappropriate", but the London Boroughs Transport Committee is to try again, with the slogan "the polluter should pay".
"It is expected that vehicle operators would apply for permits for fewer of their vehicles if a permit charge were introduced," says the LB-rc. It calls
the DDT's objectiops "surprising, unjustified and invalid".
But the Freight Transport Association claims that the LBTC is going off at a tangent. "We've been in discussions with the LBTC trying to reduce the administrative burden of the scheme," says regional director Bernard Jones. "Why not allow permits to be issued on a company-wide basis, for instance?"
Jones warns that the 115 annual charge would simply add to the cost of the scheme and would force operators into driving more during the day. "Is that what we want?" he asks.