Mixed reception for £700,000 centre.
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ANSFERRING from a city ire market where lorries had ?lbow their way passed cornters and shoppers' cars and are chaos was a weekly urrence, to an out-of-town rket with acres of space ruld have been a dream.
ut at Truro's new livestock -are, which cost almost 0,000 and was ready in less n a year, drivers have plenty grumbles — some of them ious — about the operation of centre from a haulier's point
'hey range from requests for double or treble-line-entry tern to replace the singleweing line, better penning i gating, to improved parking Fund and speedier loading I unloading.
us arm badly grazed and lised, Alistair Rowse who ies a Bedford for Jago of Ilhe, near St Austell, told how unloading bays are so wide t rogue cattle can escape ough the gap. "I tried to stop ? wild bullock and got hurt," sais. "It seems to happen a lot /1r Rowse said that the traffic irl-ups experienced at the old rket were thankfully passed, : work is very little quicker at new centre. "At Liskeard rket the drovers have the taile down and are unloading :n before you have got out of Jr cab. Here the driver has to most everything."
k similarly jaundiced view of .t new centre came from ndy Gay, who with her husId Brian run a transport busk ;s from St Day near Truro.
I can't tell you how much I ked forward to the old place sing," she said. "It was just long headache. But given chance I would go back there any time, instead of continuing to work out of here."
Mrs Gay — they have Renault lorries — said that the hauliers' associations had offered to give advice and even take a sample vehicle to be used to the centre to get things right. "As far as I know that offer was not taken up and they have got the unloadingbays up to 2ft too wide. It is downright dangerous because the driver is responsible for the beasts even if they escape. And there can be a lot of money running round at risk if they do escape."
Tony Cox who is one of a team of drivers from the expanding Sid Knowles operation at Mabe near Falmouth — they use Scania lorries and also two twinaxle cattle trailers — praised the benefits of the expansive parking space, but pointed out flaws in the designs.
"It is not possible to back up to the sheep pens, drop the tailboard and unload. The apron on the side of the building is too low. You have to drop the tail a few feet out, return to the cab and back the rest of the way. Loading, of course, is the re verse. A little forethought would have paid off."
Among the biggest vehicles to use the new centre are the Doughty double-deck cattle artics pulled by Volvo units of A. E. Stuart and Son of Clyst St Mary near, Exeter. They collect full loads from the markets and take them across country mainly to London.
Driver Robin Francis said "This is a blessing compared with the old market. There is plenty of room and I haven't had any trouble finding a bay to load from. This is right on the top of a hill and will be pretty bleak in the winter. There should be more gates in the pens so that you don't have to walk miles to gather your load together."
And farmer Thomas Tripp, who drives his own Bedford to market most weeks, said he was pleased with the large washing facilities but felt they would be pretty cold in winter. "The wind will blow the water back at you — it will be wet work."
Just how long the lorry park at the market will last in the winter weather of the West Country is another point raised by the users. Vehicles are already having to resort to grassed areas.