This crazy curfew
Page 6
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THE GREATER London Council's proposals to ban heavy lorries in the metropolis between 9pm and 7am on weekdays are undoubtedly the result of muddled thinking. Or could they be designed to win public appeal?
How will the wholesalers at Nine Elms, Smithfield, Spitalfields and the fish markets conduct their business if they cannot take in supplies? How will Westminster City Council collect refuse if it must do so in daytime hours?
Will Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury, Tesco and the other supermarket chains abandon their out-of-hours deliveries or use three times as many vehicles during the night?
Probably the most important question is how will the London rush-hour cope with the additional traffic which the proposed ban will generate?
The GLC will tell us that there will be exemptions. As we see it, there will be so many exemptions that the scheme will be a watered-down version of what the GLC's Dave Wetzel envisaged when he embarked on this futile exercise.
The police are already reported as having said that it would be unenforceable. Large traders are looking at alternative warehousing and markets outside London. That will lead to loss of industrial rates to the GLC and loss of many thousands of jobs.
The only thing the GLC can lose is face. Better it should do so now than later.
Abandon your scheme Mr Wetzel. The M25 will achieve your objectives without fuss.