• A new document suggesting that the haulage industry still
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has a long way to go to become environmentally friendly has been branded as unfair by the Road Haulage Association.
The attack came as the government announced new measures to cut air pollution.
The RHA says it is disappointed with the findings of the TERM 2001 document, published by the European Environment Agency, for saying that energy efficiency of road freight transport has not improved over the past 20 years. It wants to see the research data on which the latest findings are based.
RHA spokeswoman Kate Gibbs says: "This report obviously covers the whole of the EC, but UK haulage operators run the cleanest vehicles in Europe. Our hauliers all use ultra-low-sulphur diesel (ULSD), which is proven to have far fewer particulate emissions than the ordinary diesel used by our European counterparts.
"Our immediate reaction is that this is a report which is most unfair."
This week environment minister Michael Meacher announced that he wants to cut particle pollution levels in half by 2010. A government spokesman says: "Traffic is obviously one of the targets in this strategy."
II A scheme introduced earlier this year to tar get vehicles emitting high levels of toxins has been brought to a halt in London. Reports