Trading standards cuts hitting checks
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Cuts in trading standards staff will mean fewer checks on overweight trucks in one of the UK's busiest regions this year, a top council officer has warned.
Kent County Council's trading standards chief Bryan Dixon issued the warning after traffic examiners claimed that cutbacks in overtime would mean fewer lorry checks at weekends (CM 20 December-2 January 1991).
He says that because of spending restrictions in his department's other activities, like clamping down on traders, selling shoddy goods, will get priority over monitoring HGVs.
This is despite the fact that Kent is seen as one of the "busiest gateways" for trucks in the UK.
"It is no use mincing words. We are having to prioritise," says Dixon, whose department will lose five jobs this year. Although he will keep his 48 trading standards officers, he is having to close three offices.
Trading standards officers have virtually the same powers as traffic examiners to impound dangerous or overloaded trucks, but their main concern is that hauliers do not gain an unfair advantage over competitors by carrying more than they are allowed.
The police too are suffering a lack of funding for roadside truck checks. One Hertfordshire traffic policeman told Commercial Motor that his force was having to limit the number of stops it carried out.
"Putting on a major agency check is very labour intensive," he says. "We will do six in 1991. That is slightly less than 1990 and is not as often as we would like."
"Vehicle offences are on the increase," he says. Hauliers overloading vans, which do not need operator licences, and foreign drivers breaking hours' regulations are the most common.