...while foreign HMIs continue to invade
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N The day before the RHA protest the Government released figures confirming that vehicles from eastern Europe and Germany are still flooding into the UK.
The number of eastern European trucks operating in the UK rose 38% in the 12 months to June 1999—and the rate of the increase is rising: the April-June figure was up by 50% compared with the same period last year.
Between April and June foreign trucks made more than 220,000 journeys in the UK; for the year to June the figure was a record-breaking 804,000.
Four months ago the European Commission promised to address the issue of competition from the East, in response to growing fears about the damage eastern European hauliers and drivers are inflicting on EU operators.
Geoff Dossetter of the Freight Transport Association blames the whole problem on the Chancellor's tax policy. "The UK has been suffering from the enormous burden of taxes since 1993," he says. It means foreign trucks have a firm foothold and have picked up contracts."
And he adds that despite the scrapping of the fuel duty escalator. LIK hauliers are actually no better off than they were the day before the preBudget statement.