• COMMENT INSULAR ATTITUDE
Page 3
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• For thousands of British hauliers mainland Europe is that vast expanse of land on the wrong side of the Channel where the people don't speak English and have peculiar ideas about plumbing.
Such an indictment of our not-sosplendid isolation appears to be borne out by the latest statistics showing British hauliers' lack of interest in cabotage — the system which allows an international operator to carry out domestic haulage work in another EC member state.
Out of all the cabotage journeys carried out during the last quarter of 1990 only 3% was done by UK companies. Likewise since cabotage became legal only 34% of the 2,214 cabotage permits allocated to Britain have actually been taken up.
According to the RHA, our international hauliers are "not hanging around [Europe] waiting for domestic loads''. Given the current recession, who can blame them?
But how long can we continue to take such a parochial attitude? If business is bad in Bradford maybe there's money to be made in Barcelona, or Basle or Bonn? And not just by the big boys. The "fog in Channel, Continent isolated" mentality has ensured that we are now dangerously close to the back of the queue when it comes to exploiting niche markets on the Continent.
With the full impact of liberalisation still to be felt it's time to start planning for the future. Horror stories of hordes of continental truckers poised to invade the British domestic market are vastly exaggerated. But don't be surprised if the next time you go for a backload to Barnsley there's a Dutchman waiting for it too.