700,000 tons annually involved in N. Sea oil traffic
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• North Sea oil exploration appears likely to involve a volume of freight around 700,000 tons a year to points north of Aberdeen. This figure was put forward in the Upper House by the Earl of Lauderdale who said that if this freight was not accepted by the railways it would mean road traffic of something like 270 30-ton trucks every working day.
These facts had been known for a long time but had been ignored, declared Lord Lauderdale, but a Government spokesman, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, said it was to identify -problems precisely • such as these that the DoE and the Railways Board were carrying out a series of studies. The whole situation was being looked at with the object of deciding what could be done.
Lord Mowbray came under great pressure from Peers who wanted the traffic to be switched from road to rail. He promised that when the Railways Board had carried out its review it would be put to the Minister who would look at it with the DoE. The review would then be put to Parliament and the public.