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Levy boosts work for tippers
Page 10
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Tipper operators are benefiting from a new tax on aggregates even though some quarry owners have lost up to 75% of their business, says a trade group.
The British Aggregates Association says the 21.60/tonne levy on aggregates and their by-products has boosted demand for waste slate and china clay, which are exempt.
Director Robert Durward says that because the exempt materials are usually in remote places, the distances covered by many tipper operators have substantially increased.
"I must say that hauliers are doing well out of this, even though congestion and the environment aren't. More and more evidence is emerging that the aggregates levy is damaging industry and is not helping the environment."
Roland Young, a North Wales-based haulier with a fleet of 25 trucks, says he now shifts waste slate from a site in Bethesda, near Bangor. "This has been there for decades and now they are utilising it. There's a call for it to be used as decorative stone."
However, he says there has been a decline locally in haulage of materials on which the tax does apply.
The BAA has sent a detailed submission to Chancellor Gordon Brown outlining the damaging effects of the year-old tax in a bid to force changes in the Budget.
Northern Ireland quarry operators are said to have lost up to 75% of their business because of the ease with which non-taxed aggregates can be brought in from the Irish Republic.
In North Wales, the Penmaenmawr Quarry near Conwy has sacked a quarter of its workforce after demand for its aggregate by-products fell by 60%.