Take-a-trailer offer to hijackers in Shoreditch!
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• All that hijackers needed in certain parts of London was a mechanical horse, said an MP last week.
"If they arrive in a mechanical horse there is a trailer loaded with valuable goods", explained Mr Ronald Brown (Labour, Shorediteh and Finsbury).
"If that is the way insurance companies are prepared to allow those insured with them to carry on. it is a matter for them", he commented.
Mr Brown said the "great 30-ton juggernauts" carrying food and provisions into London were often unable to go to the docks because the GLC had not yet been able to make the proper arrangements for the vehicles.
Every street in his area was being used asa transfer depot.
At half-past twelve, half-past one and half-past two in the morning the walkie-talkies were operating and these enormous juggernauts were starting up, frightening his constituents out of bed, in order to get down to the docks to discharge their loads.
When they had done that, they brought back a load, unhooked the mechanical horse and left the trailer — unlit, unregistered and uninsured — standing in the street so that it was a hazard to people in the area and virtually an obstruction.
Mr Brown invited hijackers into his constituency — he did not care what they did with a trailer and its load, where they took it or to whom they sold it. His constituents would at least have a night's peace. No arrangements, he said, were made by the GLC or the police to ensure that the roads were kept clear.
Mr Brown was speaking during a Commons debate on the Greater London Council (Money) Bill, which authorizes capital expenditure for every major function in the city.