TIPCON CONFERENCE
Page 42
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• Many of the Tipcon business delegates were seeing red after they heard the Green Party's vision of road haulage. Jan Clarke, speaking for the Greens, said her party would like to cut the weight limit for heavy trucks back to 32.5 tonnes; introduce bans throughout the UK to restrict HGV movements at night and at weekends; tax vehicles on their emissions; and increase overloading fines.
"The question is do we need to move things as far as we do?" she said. "We must look at new ways to move essential goods. We have good inland waterways, which are not used as much as they could — we would also like to see road transport planning applications linked to rail operations."
Moving freight by rail was another im licensing will also give objectors a much clearer idea of how a company plans to run its operations. And once a licence is granted, it will no longer be subject to environmental reviews, said Arman.
However, he warned that most 0licence changes would require primary legislation, and the Dip had not yet found a suitable House of Commons slot.
Licensing authority John Mervyn Pugh called upon the Dip to change newspaper notices advertising forthcoming 0-licence hearings, attacking them as a "charter to come up with every green matter". He claimed that the adverts misled the public to believe they were opportunities to moan about bad roads or noise from operating centres. "Objectors frequently leave bitterly disappointed," he said.