Timber switch to road?
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by Eugene SiIke • From this spring, West Highland hauliers are poised to win up to 50,000 tonnes of additional timber haulage work as a local barge service is endangered.
Fort William haulier, Ewen Bowman, says local timber haulage work will be boosted by 15-20% if the barge service ends. Bowman says this work will be spread among a half dozen hauliers.
Glenlight Shipping has warned that its service serving the Western Highlands and Islands will close in spring if a threatened cut in Government subsidy goes ahead. Hauliers are critical of the public subsidies to the barge operation. "They're getting 40% on top of the rates we're getting," says Lochgilphead, Argyll-based
operator, Edward MacGinty.
He also says that this unfair competition has driven down haulage rates.
1 Timber hauliers in the north of Scotland will benefit from rapid expansion in timber output, says the Forestry Commission. Hauliers will win 90% of the boost in output to a total of 1.25 million tonnes a year in 2000.