Stop the kerbside operators: Rogers
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TOUGHER quality licensing must be introduced rapidly, Road Haulage Association chairman Ken Rogers said this week when he met Transport Minister Norman Fowler.
Speaking at Solihull, Mr Rogers said that fleets must be cut to match the drastic reductions in rates being offered to operators, but he said that more must be done in the longer term.
"I would like to suggest that attention should be given to rethinking the licensing system so that it more closely relates to supply and demand for road transport.
"The mechanism for doing this is clearly the licensing system, and in saying that the Association believes that licences should be more difficult to obtain, we are arguing not for a return to a quantity licensing system, but for the present quality licensing system to be more rigidly enforced.
"It is far too easy to enter the industry, and this looseness is the prime contributor to the drastic boom and bust cycle that bedevils our operations. There can be no justification for a system that allows rates recoverable from customers to vary so widely."
Instead, he suggested that Mr Fowler considers tightening the standards of entry to the industry, and pointed out that there is scope for making the Certificate of Professional Competence examination more difficult.
And he reminded the Minister that RHA has long expressed the view that kerbside operators should not be allowed to remain in business. He said: "If only steps were taken towards a closer examination of the financial stability of applicant operators who are entering a pool which is already overfull, leading to a gross oversupply of transport, the only consequence of which is to reduce drastically operators' income and threaten thousands of jobs."