HAULIERS WILL HAVE SAY ON CHUNNEL -TOLLS
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ROAD hauliers will be well represented on the
-" body controlling the tolls for the Channel Tunnel, Mr. J. M. B. Gotch told the London division of the Industrial Transport Association last week.
Mr. Catch, director of Traffic Services Ltd., suggested that the average freight rate would be 42s. per ton—nearly 50 per cent less than the equivalent average figure for sea ferries— although some goods would travel for as little as 33s.
He said that at one time it was thought that the tunnel would replace virtually all the existing links between the South Coast and the Continent, while the East Coast routes to Holland and Belgium were considered borderline.
But drive-on short sea ferries were proliferating around the coast and Townsend, Thoresen and similar ferries, and the Wallenius routes from Southampton to Rouen and Lisbon, had no plans to go out of business.
British Railways, however, might keep to its plans to close the Dover-Dunkirk passenger, vehicle and goods train ferry and NewhavenDieppe, Folkestone-Boulogne, Dover-Boulogne Folkestone-Calais and Dover Calais services.
He felt there was attraction in a route free from weather delays, and the tunnel had the advantage that its chief cost was the large initial one, and its operating and maintenance costs would be far lower than for other transport modes.
It would help to keep cross-Channel freight rates at a low level—because it would remain competitive when manpower, ship-building and maintenance costs for other forms of transport had increased.