Seeing it through
Page 4
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
CROSS-CHANNEL freight traffic has fallen by as much as ten per cent on some routes over the past year. The freight director of one of the large ferry operators estimates a further five per cent drop and does not anticipate any sign of recovery for more than a year.
In some respects the situation may be regarded as a blessing in disguise. It will give road and ferry operators and port authorities the opportunity to iron out a few problems in the system. Properly used it could also lead to the abolition of permits.
The decline in traffic could have been avoided if difficulties in obtaining permits had been removed. There are still exports in UK warehouses waiting for shipment and there are still operators waiting for permits.
Another factor is the cost of exports and their shipment. There must be economies in handling which could be achieved by using unaccompanied traffic.
However, it is accepted that passing a loaded trailer to a relatively unknown operator 30 miles across the sea has not always proved efficient. The establishment of one's own office in a foreign port is the simple effective answer.
Nor are the port areas all that they might be. They have not developed apace with traffic, the feeder roads promised by Barbara Castle in 1967 are inching their weary way to the coast, and services can be further improved.
This is the time to be getting on with it — not when we are moving out of recession. If we leave it that long we will be left at the starting gate on the race to recovery.