44-tonners 'inevitable'
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• Forty-four tonne trucks are inevitable from next year, a leading anti-truck campaigner has conceded.
And although the UK Transport Secretary will vote against heavier trucks in the EC Council of Ministers to appease voters at home, he will privately be in favour of the move, says former friends of the Earth spokesman Jonathon Porritt.
But in his Daily Telegraph column, Porritt also says that the only way to avoid doubling the volume of road freight by the year 2000 is to move goods from road to rail.
He dismisses Government promises of a greater role for the railways through grants and deregulation of British Rail: "Such ideas will only work when lorry owners have to pay the full costs of the social and environmental damage their vehicles cause," he says. "Heavier lorries will result in greater wear and tear on our roads and bridges, necessitating further massive spending `to improve road infrastructure'."
The FTA says Porritt fails to "present the whole issue. Many of his assertions are incorrect", it claims.