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I Haulier loses £40,000 after
Page 10
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I HIS INEttk
P WEATHER
snow hits deliveries hard
By Rnanna Avison A MIDLANDS operator is seeking recompense after losing nearly £40,000 during the period of winter weather last week, because ungritted roads prevented its trucks from making deliveries.
King's Cliffe, Northants-based PC Howard argues the council should be prepared to grit all roads, particularly those leading into industrial areas.
Owner Bernard Howard is scheduled to meet Northamptonshire County Council, the Road Haulage Association (RHA) and the Corby Business Group to discuss the problems today (19 February).
Howard is also writing to the Department for Transport (DfT) to ask for the region to be declared a disaster area, so businesses can claim compensation.
"We had trucks going out, but they were unable to get into side roads and industrial estates because they had not been gritted. I still had to pay my drivers, but lost nearly £40,000 in business because of the snow."
A spokesman for Northamptonshire County Council says: "Our priority has been to focus our gritting rounds on the county's Aroads, so that we could ensure that essential services had an accessible road network for coping with emergencies. We also deployed snow ploughs to clear secondary routes whenever possible."
Roger King, chief executive at the RHA, asks: "Who is going to take a strategic responsibility to treat roads? We think there are questions to be asked there. Would it not be a good idea to have a pool of gritters that different regions can have access to?"
But a DfT spokesman says: "Local authorities are responsible for their local roads. But given the exceptional weather conditions, the government did all it could to co-ordinate the supply of salt throughout England and Wales."