3LC ban 'nonsense'
Page 6
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
3REATER LONDON lorry ban uld have national effects, and uld not just affect transport distribution in the capital, ight Transport Association ffic officer Don McIntyre said ; week.
le was speaking at the public nch of London Needs Lorries, coalition of trade and indusrepresentatives formed un • the FTA's umbrella to resist bans which could arise from Wood Report published last ek (CM, July 23).
Or McIntyre said it was itent nonsense" to suggest, the Wood Report does, that eller lorries would save in;try money. A general ban uld put many established ;inesses at risk and would bably cause a deterioration he environment.
ainsbury's distribution direcLen Payne, who also is chairn of the Confederation of :ish Industry's transport corntee, detected a political bias he Report's conclusions. He I it amounted to an attack on ;don's economy which would istantially reduce the stand of living of Londoners.
lo industrialist would put a iny of investment into LonDocklands, he said, if there -e a lorry ban, and added that insbury's had frozen deopment of distribution tres within the M25 orbital torway route for the past two rs, largely because of the at of a ban.
s nine transhipment and 11 3king depots in the area Jld all be put at risk by a ban,
if heavy lorries were not permitted access, and a ban would add between £60m and £75m to distribution costs. This would be passed on to the consumer.
Hugh Palmer, of Ind Coope's Romford Brewery, had an even more stark message. A 16-ton ban, which Wood said would save industry £12m a year, would add 6.5p to the price of each pint of beer produced there, would compel the corn pany to transfer packaging work to Burton on Trent and would ultimately put all 714 jobs there at risk.
For Rank Hovis, Stewart Phillips encouraged the Greater London Council to address the environmental problems of London in an objective manner, and suggested that transport committee chair Dave Wetzel, who last week described the Wood Report as "dynamite" should allow the offending parts of the report to "go the way of all dynamite."
The GLC's anti-lorry objectives had already driven industry to other parts of the country, he said, and Rank Hovis would have to consider moving "many thousands" of jobs out of London.
• See News Extra, p18.