Hauliers display 'Dunkirk spirit'
Page 5
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• by Miles Brignall and Sally Nash Tippers and specialist vehicles across the UK are being pressed into service by the Freight Transport Association on the government's behalf as part of the battle against foot and mouth disease.
The massive operation, dubbed by some as exhibiting "the Dunkirk spirit", began last week when the ETA was charged with the task of sourcing fouraxled rigid tippers on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries & Food (MAFF).
This week the ETA is appealing for a range of vehicles including off-road tractive units, livestock transporters, plant machinery, artic tippers and Maxie tipping trailers. There is a particular need for sealable trailers and tippers.
The ETA was originally asked to find vehicles in Scotland, Wales, the Northfast, the West Midlands and the West Country, but this was quickly expanded to cover most of the country.
A control centre has been set up at the FTA's Kent base and the association has a representative stationed at the MAFF operations room in Reading.
The call centre is being manned around the clock. Company details are logged and married up to where vehicles are needed. Drivers are provided with special clothing and there are rigorous procedures to disinfect vehicles after each delivery. Drivers are not even allowed to leave the cab.
We have asked the industry to help and they have really conic through at this time of national emergency," says an ETA spokesman. "By the end of Monday we had received 500 calls offering assistance." Hauliers are invoicing the FTA at commercial rates; the association will then invoice the government.
Hauliers who think
they can help should use the ETA hotline, 01892 552240, or e-mail footandmouth4fta.co.uk.
• Livestock hauliers are pressing every smaller vehicle into service in a bid to move live sheep designated for slaughter , to mass burial sites.
In Cumbria thousands of healthy sheep are being taken to the airfield at Great Orton, near Carlisle, where the army has been called in by MAFF to help get the outbreak under control. Similar schemes are operating in Devon, the North-East and around the Forest of Dean.
However, restricted access to many of the farms means that nothing bigger than six-wheelers can get through.
"It's soul-destroying work which is having an impact on the drivers," says Bob Armstrong, owner of Longtown-based W Armstrong.
"Farmers are feeding the lambs one minute and the trucks are taking them away moments later," he says.
He reports the operation has become more professional since the army's involvement but the mood of the local people is worsening daily. "It's a grim business and the future does not look bright. The farmers are losing everything, we've got millions of pounds worth of specialist livestock trailers parked up and every sixwheeler from miles around is working all the daylight hours. Our milk tankers are operating at 30% down on normal capacity and it's difficult to see it ending soon," he says.