FTA fury over ban costs
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• Freight Transport Association chief Garry Turvey has attacked the Road Haulage Association for paying only 20% of the £200,000 London Lorry Ban legal bill.
The FTA has been left to foot 70% of the bill for challenging the ban's controversial Condition 11 in the courts, says Turvey: "Approximately 70% of the costs were borne by FTA and its members, 20% by the RHA and 10% by the SMMT. So much for the industry standing shoulder to shoulder," he says in a hard-hitting editorial in the latest edition of the FTA journal Freight.
In 1988 the two trade associations teamed up with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders to fight a London Boroughs Transport Committee plan forcing all trucks over 16.5 tonnes using the capital at night to have hush kits. The haulage lobby claimed that the scheme contravened Construction and Use regulations.
They won the first two rounds, in the High Court and Court of Appeal, but lost in the House of Lords last August.
"We have been left at the end of the day to shoulder the lion's share," says Turvey.
Although the RHA and FTA had initially agreed to limit their shares to £20,000 each, the cost escalated as each appeal went ahead. "Once we were on the bandwagon, we could not get off," he says.
However, the RHA defends its actions, saying it revised its original £20,000 commitment to 20% of the overall bill: "We paid what we said we would pay," it says. "The FTA decided to run this from the start — besides, the ban affects their members more than ours." Turvey also criticises the Department of Transport's refusal to take the matter of hush kits and the lorry ban to court itself in order to clear up the law: The DTp has let down the whole industry," he says.
But the DTp says the LBTC was within its powers to make the regulations. "The industry decided to take it as far as the House of Lords off its own back; we never promised financial aid," it says.