3LC waits for Wood
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E GREATER London Council's £90,000 anti-lorry campaign and its ■ posed ban on 38-tonners have been put on ice. It now plans to nothing until after the Wood Inquiry has reported, writes ALAN .LAR.
he Wood Inquiry, established 1981 to provide the GLC with facts of the effects of bans on les of over eight, 16, and 24nes from all or part of the C area, is expected to report :k by mid-April.
: is expected that it will conn an additional section iling with 38-tonners, arid beIse of this and its imminent )lication, councillors are waitrather than pressing on with ampaign which was as much i-Government as anti-lorry.
he 38-tonne ban was unlikely rr to receive Government )port, and would only have )n possible on GLC roads. m there, its effect would have limited by the Department Transport's reluctance to ct advance signs on its roads the area, and by the absence legally recognised weight it signs for lorries other than and 16.5 tonners.
3oth the Road Haulage Assotion and the Freight Transport sociation have protested strongly against the proposed ban, which would have made 38tonners very unattractive across the country and could have encouraged other councils to apply similar bans.
They also were angry that the GLC, having set up the Wood Inquiry to establish "the facts" on lorry problems, was preempting it by banning one class of vehicles and by running a rates-supported publicity campaign to oppose those "facts" before they became known.
An RHA spokesman described the delay as "good news", and the PTA said it regarded the move as a "sensible decision" but a GLC spokesman denied that the delay was the result of any outside criticism.
He said it was appropriate to recognise that lorry controls are a long drawn-out matter and that they will need to be discussed in consultation with interested parties. He added that the campaign will be reviewed after Wood reports. That is probably good news for the transport industry, as it has been faced with apathy in its attempts to mount a more modest counter-campaign to highlight the benefits which lorries bestow to the economy of London.
Wood's findings could go before the GLC transport committee on April 27, four days before 38-tonners are legalised, but it is likely to be much longer before councillors are in a position to know what, if any, lorry bans they may wish to implement in London. "It would need a thoroughgoing job," a spokesman said.