Hauliers plan national action in June • Hauliers "with only
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weeks to live" plan to take national direct action on 8 June. This follows a meeting last week between hauliers' campaign group Trans-Action, Road Haulage Association director-general Steven Norris and Dover MP Gwyn Prosser, which failed to convince the angry hauliers that fuel prices will fall before cabotage changes come in on 1 July.
Prosser promised to organise a "frank" meeting with the Treasury, but T-A members feel "something has to give" before July, when they fear their jobs will be lost to Continentals.
Many hauliers praised the RHA's Essential User Rebate proposal, but said they were not prepared to wait two years for its possible introduction.
Others felt the RHA had been "sitting on its rear end for the past three years". Peter Knight, owner of Canterbury-based Les Knight Transport, says: "I fear a solution will not come in time. In a year a lot of those here today will be gone."
Frank Stears of Frank Stears Haulage bluntly describes last Friday's meeting as "cobblers". He adds: "The changes on 1 July are the real killer—Prosser won't get anywhere. Drivers are now prepared to act."