RAW DEAL
Page 3
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• The not-in-myback-yarders are at it again. The same people who are quick to berate their local supermarket manager when there are no eggs left on the shelf are pressing their local councillors to impose a truck ban on a busy industrial estate in London (see pages 2-3).
The proposal, for the Slade Green area of Bexley, goes much further than the loathed London Lorry Ban. This one would allow no HGV movements at all — even for essential loads such as early morning deliveries. The way some residents talk, you'd think operators enjoyed revving up their wagons and thundering through sleepy residential streets just for the hell of it.
Farmers, fishermen, miners and manufacturers also come under fire from neighbours for causing some inconvenience as they go about their essential tasks — but when's the last time you heard of anyone trying to tell them that they could only do their jobs when it was "convenient"? And how do the armchair experts think that the produce of those industries gets where it's needed?
As these hauliers fight for survival much will be said of residents' rights, the need to protect the green belt and compensation for property owners. Little thought will be given to the irrefutable fact that, without trucks all those leafy suburban roads would become a wasteland.
The operators whose livelihoods are being threatened are responsible members of the community, doing their best to carry out a task that community depends on. They've sited their depots in a purpose-built industrial estate and brought employ ment to the area. They deserve better treatment than this.
Oil
4:141 rilL