Scottish and Northern Tipper Groups Discuss interworking
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"CLOSING the gate before the horse has a chance to bolt" was one of the phrases used in describing the purpose of the first-ever joint consultative meeting between tipper operators in the North of England and those in Scotland. The meeting, held in Stirling, last week, was called by the Road Haulage Association's Scottish area tipping group committee, to discuss with representatives of the northern committee problems likely ' to arise when vast new areas of South Eastern Scotland are thrown open to operators who have previously worked in mainly local pockets, by the opening of road bridges over the two major obstacles in the area, the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay.
When the Forth road bridge is opened next August it will cut 50 miles off the road route and make operating in the Fife area an economic proposition for Northern area tippers—and vice versa.
Some 20 miles north of the Forth is the Tay and when the road bridge now under construction is opened in an estimated two years it will open the area north of Dundee to those in Fife, Edinburgh and the north of England.
In a four-hour meeting, 24 operators —including eight from the north of England—and R.H.A. officials met under the chairmanship of E. Hemphill to air their views on keeping up rates. and increasing co-operation between operators. All were keen to improve the
al 0 situation amongst themselves and considerable progress was made, particularly regarding interworking on major projects.
The Scottish R.H.A, area secretary, Mr. L. J. Stokoe, commented after a meeting: "if more was done on these lines we would be a lot stronger ".
Although this was the first detailed business meeting between the Scottish and northern groups, they have met socially for the past two years when the Scottish area have invited representatives to its annual conference.
Leyland/Foden Hid Denied: A spokesman of Leyland Motors Ltd. denied on Wednesday rumours in certain sections of the Press that the company was likely to make a bid for control of Fodens Ltd., the heavy commercial vehicle manufacturers. Leyland has, for several years, held 38 per cent of Fodens shares, but is unlikely to increase its holding. "This question of a Foden take-over is a hardy annual ", the spokesman said.