IN BRIEF
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• Legislation requiring coaches to be fitted with 70mph (1131cm/h) speed limiters will be introduced in the House of Commons soon, says roads and traffic minister Peter Bottomley. The move follows unsuccessful attempts to impose speed limiters voluntarily.
The forthcoming regulations will probably require that all new coaches are fitted with speed limiters from 1 April, next year; that coaches first used on or after 1 April 1984 must have speed limiters fitted by 1 April 1990; and that coaches first used after 1 April 1974 will have limiters fitted by 1 April 1991.
• Northampton-based haulier C Butt has won this year's Lloyds Bowmaker Industrial Achievement Award (road transport section). Pictured above is Gerald Butt, managing director (left), receiving the award from Tom Llewellyn, executive board member of the RHA which jointly sponsored the road transport section. Butt's entry centred around the "open costing" system it used to break down operating costs into component parts. C Butt, founded in 1926, has built up a fleet of more than 150 trucks and about 200 semitrailers.
• Star Bodies, formerly part of the National Freight Consortium and operated by BRS Northern, has been acquired by its larger neighbour the Buckstone group.
BRS cites Oldham-based Star Bodies' inability to meet financial targets as the reason for selling the bodybuilding activity to Buckstone. BRS says it has ensured that every job has been absorbed within NFC or Buckstone.
The new owner produces refrigerated and dry-freight bodies and has three other factories in the Oldham area. It plans to redevelop the Star works as an additional assembly plant. Star specialised in dry freight curtainsiders and box vans.