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HELP HAULIERS, URGES HIGHLANDS BOARD
Page 39
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ROAD haulage holds the key to better and more economic freight services in the Highlands of Scotland—but already the industry is labouring under the limitations of inadequate roads.
This message has been passed to the Government by the Highland Transport Board in its final report after a three-year look at conditions in this large but isolated sector of Britain.
The Board points out that hauliers have been rapidly taking over much of the Highland traffic formerly carried by the railways, and this will continue and increase.
But bigger and wider vehicles will be needed to keep down unit costs: Already, efficiency and costs are adversely affected by the limitations of many roads in the area.
A fundamental aim of transport policy, says the Board, should be to assist road transport, and special attention must now be paid to the roads. It would be a tragedy if the lack of good roads proved a basic deterrent to the development of the Highlands.
The extent to which the area depends on road transport is shown, the report adds, by the fact that there are 26 licensed vehicles per 100 inhabitants, compared with 18 per 100 in the rest of Scotland.
From 1962 to 1965 goods vehicles and cars licensed in the Highlands increased by over 18 per cent, only just short of Glasgow's increase. This did not take into account the increasing numbers of vehicles travelling from outside the area. Commercial vehicles, for instance, now carry virtually all the area's livestock and an ever-increasing proportion of the fish traffic. The Board recommend that a number of road routes should be improved to modem standards before 1980. Operators want priority attention for the road between Inverness. Dingwall and Invergordon.
Among other developments suggested is the replacement of the Ballachulish ferry with a toll-free bridge, saving an expensive 19-mile detour for most lorries and buses; and a rapid and extensive expansion of vehicle ferries to the Scottish islands.