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VOSA changes areas
Page 14
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VOSA wants a single traffic area soon, but talks must wait for the general election. Chris Tindall reports.
PLANS TO CONSULT the haulage industry over scrapping the eight traffic regions covered by the Traffic Commissioners in favour of a single Traffic Area have been delayed until later this summer.
This is despite Senior TC Philip Brown's prediction in the latest Commissioners' report that a single TrafficArea could be created at "some stage in 2006".
The idea of a single TA was mooted last year when CM revealed a sweeping programme of modernisation (CM 30 September 2004). A consultation paper was due to be published earlier this year, but a Department for Transport spokesman explains that the forthcoming General Election has forced a delay.
"It's a bit late because of opera tional reasons," he says. "By the time it came to work on it it was decided to leave it until after the election. It depends on which goy eminent it is and on its priorities."
In the TCs' report Brown wrote: "Any reforms which emanate as a result of this initiative will,the government believes, ease the regulatory burden on operators who currently hold operators' licences in more than one Traffic Area."
This would enable operators with depots nationwide to deal with a single nominated VOSA official when adding vehicles to their licence, for example, wherever they are based.
Brown says there are "many arguments for and against [the proposals]". He sounded a note of caution when he spoke to CM last September:"If an operator loses his licence then he will be effectively closed down in the whole of England — not just one Traffic Area."