Bumper crops cause shortage
Page 8
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Elizabeth Daly • Grain hauliers are facing too much demand from a harvest which has been concentrated by the hot weather into two weeks rather than two months.
Merchants are complaining that there are too few lorries available to move the grain from the farms, while some hauliers are losing money because of the short, if busy, harvest.
The Road Haulage Association says it has issued warnings for years about the shortage of grain haulage capacity, and cites low rates as one of the major causes.
Graham Houghton of the RHA says: "Rates for grain haulage are some 22.5% to 25% lower than those that can be achieved by tippers carrying other types of load. so it is not surprising many of them are leaving this sector. "The long delays experienced by hauliers while waiting to unload at the mills, and the increasingly stringent health and safety requirements are further disincentives for hauliers," he says.
A spokesman for John Marshall Transport, Newmarket, says: "Up until two years ago we were one of the biggest grain haulier companies in the area, but with rates still being held at 1982 levels, and sometimes less, we have reduced our involvement to just 30% of our total trade. The remainder of our 20-strong fleet has been converted to tilts to carry cargo from the docks.
"The number of companies involved in grain haulage has fallen by at least 25% over the past