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Page 5
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MAD COWS AND HAULIERS
• It's happening again. British livestock hauliers are apparently losing thousands of pounds, their loads are being destroyed -and no-one seems to care a fig about compensation.
Not so long ago British lamb was being pulled out of British trucks and publicly destroyed in French market squares while the French authorities looked on. The hauliers concerned were treated poorly. Today's problem is closer to home, with the rise of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease. Farmers are being compensated at a rate of £600 a cow as Government vets kill off infected animals, but livestock hauliers facing a 50% drop in business are being ignored, as usual.
Richard Rolls, chairman of the Road Haulage Association's south-eastern area livestock division is facing the crisis with detached resignation. "We'll probably get nothing in the end," he says. Why not? French hauliers would not take a Government-inspired cut in business lying down. They would make their protests heard, and seen. We have contacted at least 10 livestock hauliers who have lost money in recent months. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food estimates that the mad cow disease problem has cut Britain's £.47m annual cattle export trade by 10%. Big money is going down the drain. Apathy is a terrible problem, whenever and wherever it appears. Hauliers cannot expect the Government and its agencies to take them seriously if they do not make their case, forcibly and convincingly. Why did the Government not consult the road transport industry before it made the new regulations, when it consults everyone else in sight? Why does the Government put so many road transport matters on the back burner, like the review of the traffic area offices, complaining that it does not have the time or the inclination to get too closely involved? Because hauliers do not protest loudly enough. Time is running out and hauliers really must do something about their low-key public image. If not, our industry will be the perennial loser.