BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
Page 31
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HETI1ER or not the Greater London Council knows it's ristrnas, it certainly doesn't care. It is make life as difficult as possible at a Le of acute distribution problems for ny traders by banning lorries over 16 is at night and at weekends from cember 16. [he only hope of relief lies in a cessful appeal by Transport Secretary :holas Ridley against the High urt's ruling that he was not entitled veto the ban. Poor Nicholas, who
not have much luck in the courts, eived a mauling from Justice McNeil, o branded his action as irrational and 7easonable as well as illegal.
[here can be little more irrational and :.easonable than to impose night and ekend deliveries on daytime traffic
t grinds slowly at. the best of times conies practically to a halt in the nth before Christmas, when all the )ps require constant supplies to meet year's highest trading peak.
[he GLC should appoint Bob Geldof traffic manager. He knows about ristrnas and a good deal else about wing urgently needed goods in large mtities.
4 RECENT visit to Hounslow RECENT station, in West London left o]league confused, if not depressecl,by latest manifestation of the London ansport "more-than-my-job's-worth" ntality. He wanted to use a London [slims (independent bus run on a ndon Regional Transport franchise) .vice to Slough, and sought
brmation from an inspector.
"Sorry, nothing to do with us," the :pector told him. But it's a London ansport bus, is it not? "No, sir. It's ndon Regional Transport." Yes, but
u are too, surely? "No, we're London ises.'' And to think that route franchising A the creation of a separate bus siness at LRT are supposed to help : passenger.
3 RITAIN needs tourists and the best way of showing them the untry is by coach. It is convenient, mfortable and inexpensive. This is iplicit in a Government programme to courage visitors to Britain, which cognises that more parking spaces for aches are needed in London and ;ewhere.
As Lord Young, Minister Without )rtfolio, was announcing the plan, awn_ Hamilton, back-bencher ithout Anything Much, was complaining to the House of Commons about the parking of coaches around the Palace of Westminster. Transport Minister Lynda Chalker replied that she was well aware of the problem and had urged the GLC to do something effective about it. She thought it was more important to help those who were creating wealth and employment than to hound them_ She might have added, but was too kind to do so, that if the GLC had been as lavish with ratepayers' money in setting up coach parks as it had been on some of its highly dubious activities, Willie Hamilton might have been saved irritation.
DON McINTYRE, the Freight
ON Association's planning and fraffic services manager, is fast becoming the face of the lorry lobby.
Perhaps even the green face of die lorry lobby, for it was in such a bilious hue that his face was illuminated by the makers of the anti-lorry Archway Road Movie when it filled Channel 4 television screens some weeks ago, if any of you could remain awake for that rambling, disjointed two hour-plus marathon. Don was on hand again after last month's High Court judgment which favoured the GLC's night and weekend ban, ready to give the transport industry's reaction to the assembled media waiting in the Strand, when the GLC's jubilant Dave Wetzel spared a
few minutes to reassure him with a cry of -Don't panic, Don."
And although an FTA ban on its staff attending a GLC press conference last week kept Don out of the limelight, his name just could not be kept away. Wetzel slammed a South London Newi piece about the ban as being "so biased that it must have been written by Don McIntyre".
DC) YOU WANT to drive a coach and horses through your own side?" an indignant Anthony Steen,
Conservative MP for South Hams, asked Nicholas Ridley, Transport Secretary. He was protesting against the Transport Secretary's decision to overrule the recommendation by a joint committee of MPs and peers that Okehampton should be by-passed to the north. The Government prefers a southern route, which would clip 1/4sq mile off Dartmoor National Park, but could be built much sooner and more cheaply than a northern by-pass. This is what an independent inspector recommended more than two years ago after a 96-day public inquiry_ I am not sure whether Nicholas Ridley wants to drive a coach and horses, but he certainly wants to be able to drive something bigger than a supermarket trolley through Okehampton. As the present tortous route through the Devon town dates from the days of the horse, Anthony Steen's suggestion is perhaps appropriate. At the present rate, traffic will still be blocking Okehampton long after the Channel Tunnel has been built.
VEHICLE maintenance is one of the routine summer-holiday activities in industry which, according to Dr John Cullen, chairman of the Health and Safety Commission, will kill more than 20 men and seriously injure at least 600 unless care is taken to prevent accidents.
"Falling, crushing, asphyxiation and electrocution will account for most of the deaths and injuries," he said. They will be the result of allowing safety to take a holiday during the busy maintenance season. The commission estimates that maintenance accounts for more than 100 deaths and 3,000 serious injuries a year, and is anxious that these grim figures should not be increased by summer madness.
by the Hawk