Safeguarding road transport interests
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Unless road transport uses new ways of making its views known and its influence felt it faces a frustrating time. Gone are the days when nearly all the decisions that mattered were taken in a conveniently centralized way in "Whitehall". Road transport rules and regulations will no longer automatically emanate from "the Ministry". Already we are seeing how swiftly domestic transport affairs can be affected by EEC initiatives in Brussels; while on more local matters the Dykes Bill has become an Act which gives local councils the power to route or ban heavy goods vehicles and the obligation to prepare traffic regulation schemes. At the same time the Government's own Transport Policy and Programme plan will require each local authority to prepare a rolling programme for expenditure on roads, parking, traffic management and public transport.
Fortunately for British operators, successive governments' policy of consulting with trade bodies before enacting legislation has produced a working relationship which is apparently rare on the Continent. This relationship has also developed levels of expertise in the transport trade associations which will prove invaluable in detailed Common Market negotiations. We have already seen the influence of this, and the establishment of the new European Conference of British Bus and Coach Operators is a further reassurance; this latest move is a tribute to the energy and farsightedness of the PVOA and its director.
Nearer home, trade associations will continue to make their voices heard in local matters, but there is new scope for the individual operator to act as watchdog too. One of the safeguards in the latest local government set-up is that councils have to show the Government each year that they have considered all relevant options in drawing up transport and traffic schemes. It is very much up to freight and passenger operators to make sure that local councillors are made aware of the options that they favour.