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MONEY MATTERS
Page 5
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• Money does matter, whether we like it or not. And wasted money matters most. To hear the influential House of Commons Public Accounts Committee berate the inefficient and profligate policies of the Department of Transport this week is a case of déjà vu.
To hear one of the country's top research scientists slam the same government department in the same week for forcing the road haulage industry to waste its money just adds insult to injury. When will the DTp realise that — given the opportunity — Britain's hauliers will use fewer, bigger and more fuel-efficient trucks? The only thing stopping our industry from being as load and fuel-efficient as the rest of Europe is a DTp ministerial team frightened to death of a mythical political backlash they are convinced would result from increased commercial-vehicle length and weight limits.
The latest round of increases agreed — albeit begrudgingly — by Channon and his team has not brought howls of protest from the Tory shires. Surprise, surprise.
Ricardo Consulting Engineers' design director Val Dare-Bryan says that the UK's artifically low 32.5-tonne drawbar weight limit is forcing hauliers to waste fuel. That is a rich conclusion to reach only weeks after Roads and Traffic Minister Peter Bottomley slammed the haulage industry for wasting 2500 million a year through bad driving practices. What's that old saying about people in glass houses? The Public Accounts Committee is made up of Labour and Conservative MPs, and it too has been throwing stones. DTp road building programmes never seem to follow logic, and the MPs have seen through the latest department strategy of constructing glamorous new roads so that the tape-cutting opening ceremony brings kudos and publicity to its planners, while less noticeable essential repair work goes undone. The committee did not pull its punches: "We consider this is a striking example of short-sightedness in saving now, but spending later . . . we recognise that the attractions of cutting a ribbon on a new road are more obvious than the benefits from the more mundane task of keeping existing routes in good condition."
The overall message to the DTp is clear. Get with it, because money matters.