Truk costs wrong £500m a year
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(ACK COST calculations will have to revised before the Government anges to a vehicle excise duty based lorries' gross weights. So says the eight Transport Association in a .cument released this week.
It accuses the Department of Transport using outmoded and inaccurate meas35 of track costs, and says that lorries are ying £496m more in tax than they get ck in road maintenance and improve While DTp figures suggest that 32-ton Jr-axle lorries are paying £793 a year less in the costs which they incur, FTA says in A they are paying £805 too much.
And it goes on to point out that 16-ton o-axle lorries pay £450 more than they 3uld, and that the equivalent figure for 24-ton three-axle lorry is £700.
DTp road maintenance and capital exnditure figures are based on a mixture of :wheal expenditure, predicted expendie, and inflation rates, and are used to duce a three-year figure for average )enditure.
FTA believes that actual expenditure ures should be used instead, as this will more accurate. There is a £23m gap ween the DTp's estimate of £2561m 1980/81 and actual expenditure of 538m. The FTA figures take account of the added wear which lorries impose upon road surfaces, but it points out that only 42 per cent of maintenance expenditure in the current financial year will be spent on the carriageway itself.
FTA says it wants the £496m difference either to be paid back to operators in reduced taxes, or for more roads to be built with the money. A spokesman said this week: "We don't believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer knows that the £496m extra is being paid in."