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by Stephen Geary MIDDLE EAST operators got a rude shock

13th August 1976, Page 28
13th August 1976
Page 28
Page 28, 13th August 1976 — by Stephen Geary MIDDLE EAST operators got a rude shock
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last week when the Department of the Environment announced that the supply of permits for the Hungarian part of the route had dried up.

And they might have got a ruder shock when they heard of some of the DoE suggestions for alternative routes which included one through France and Spain crossing the Mediterranean at Gibraltar and through North Africa.

C-Tran International managing director Mr Terry Cook described the suggestion as "ridiculous"' and Jenkinson International managing director Mr Jim Wood asked: "Who's going to pay for that?"

The Hungarian route is not the only one to be affected by the permits famine either — the Italian authorities have decided not to issue any more permits for the time being. This is the sort of situation which, if it goes on, could put some British operators into the hands of the Receiver.

A DoE spokesman admitted that the situation was bad. He said that emergency negotiations were going on with both Hungarians and Italian governments in an effort to get more permits for the British hauliers.

But he was not going to be pushed into any optimistic estimates of the time that the negotiations would take — or whether they would be successful.

At Astran International Mr Bob Howells was pessimistic: "On the face of it no sub-contractor can move — and we have around 50 on the go at any one time.

"The German and Austrian permits won't last to the end of the year — and this business with the Hungarian permits is really going to hit us.

"It is so bad that it is going to push even some of the larger companies out of business; we are not made for the UK runs. You just can't push trucks the size of ours with double sleepers around Britain — they're just too heavy," said Mr Howells.

Trailers using German railways must be either specially built or altered to have a centre height of not more than 3.8 metres and a corner height of not more than 3.6 metres — a conversion of £400 to £500 per trailer.

At C-Tran Mr Cook said that his fleet of owner-drivers were having some of their trailers converted to go on the train, and he angrily attacked the sudden announcement of the permits situation.

"Where have they all gone?" he asked, "'It's disgusting the way the Ministry just rang up and said there's no more permits; they must have known in advance that they were running out.

"I've got one chap here who paid £16,000 for a new truck; he's done one run and now there's no more permits. It's the usual story of larger companies getting the permits and the owner-drivers being ignored,'" he asid.

£600 fines

Mr Howells said that another new route through Czechoslovakia, Russia and Romania was rumoured to be starting, but he said that for trucks over 26 tons gvw in Romania there were on the spot fines of £500 to £600.

The DoE suggested that operators might use the German Railways piggyback service — and a gleeful spokesman for Deutsches Bundesbahn said that the service was re-starting on Saturday (August 14) with increased capacity.

But the service has suffered from both rolling stock and technical troubles in the past. "There is no likelihood of the British Government negotiating enough permits for the Hungarian route, and the DoE has not made this clear enough," said the spokesman.

He said that the train might be delayed by holiday traffic on the railways but it will be possible to get The timetables fixed, The train from Cologne to Ljubjana would mean that operators would need permits only from countries where there at present appears to be no supply problems — but there are disadvantages.

Mr Wood at Jenkinsons said that the Road Haulage Association should do more. "They haven't got a loud enough voice in this business. This is going to have far-reaching effects on the whole of industry,he said.

"We just don't know how we are going to meet our commitments to our largest customers — letters of credit will run out and manufacturers won't get paid for their goods. What's the point in making something if you can't export it?"

The RHA saw no immediate solution to the problem. "All we can do is to put more pressure on the DoE and applaud their efforts to get some more permits," said a spokesman.

News of the permits famine comes in a week when two Surrey men were given suspended prison sentences for forging Austrian and Yugoslavian and German permits.


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