Pay up, says Neely
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MAJOR customers of road hauliers must pay higher rates, Road Haulage Association national chairman Bert Neely said last week, as the RHA released details of cost increases this year.
In his address to members and guests at the RHA's annual dinner in London, Mr Neely singled out the Central Electricity Generating Board as one of the major customers of haulage which had been kept in business during the miners' strike.
"Surely it cannot be unreasonable that hauliers who kept the wheels of industry turning ... and whose drivers suffered bombardment and harrassment in the cause of protecting their jobs in the future, should at least be rewarded by retaining a greater share of coal movement in the future," he said.
But he added that the user must pay a reasonable rate if it is to go on receiving a reasonable service from hauliers.
"There is just no money left in the kitty to absorb additional costs and hold prices for 12 months as we used to in the past. Surcharges will have to be applied," Mr Neely added. He insisted that claims of hauliers reaping "excessive" financial rewards for carrying extra coal traffic were false, and said the RHA had positive statements from hauliers that they did not profiteer out of misfortune.
"What has happened is that circumstances have opened up new traffic which has been achieved at 1984/85 rates, whereas so many of us are being forced by the depths of the depression to accept rates which were barely viable five years or more ago."
And in words aimed at Energy Secretary Peter Walker, who was principal guest speaker, Mr Neely urged a change from basing the price of oil on the US dollar to basing it on sterling, the currency upon which coal and gas prices are based.
But he got little change out of Mr Walker who, while prepared to heap fulsome praise on hauliers' ability to respond to the emergency posed by the miners' strike, suggested that the RHA would alienate its members if the value of sterling rose sharply again after a switch to making it the base currency for oil prices.
"All I can tell you is to be careful," Mr Walker warned the RHA.
Mr Neely's comments on rates came as the RHA revealed that Its members' costs have risen by 5.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year And since January 1984, costs have risen by 12.5 per cent.