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LETTER OF THE WEEK

5th April 2012, Page 15
5th April 2012
Page 15
Page 15, 5th April 2012 — LETTER OF THE WEEK
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

We’re essential: give us a rebate!

FOR 12 YEARS the subject of fuel duty has meandered along like a very old backwater, slowly clogging up with the corpses of defunct UK haulage companies.

After the most co-ordinated and professional attempt by the FairFuelUK (FFUK) campaign to get the government to listen, it still won’t take note or give our industry any relief.

We’ve been in business for 32 years and these are the most dificult trading conditions we’ve faced. In the last year I’ve cut our leet from 16 vehicles to 12 and have also had to downsize our yard to cut overheads.

We’ve had to go back to customers and inform them that we have to increase rates by around 4p per tonne on the commodities we transport for them – and that’s just to cover the latest round of fuel increases. But we can’t keep asking customers to accept higher rates.

As an industry, we are in desperate need of an essential user rebate. The Treasury should afford us a fairer fuel taxation deal to keep road transport alive. This present stance is crippling hauliers every day.

All goods, at some point in their life, will have spent time on a truck, so why does the Treasury insist on increasing the duty rate as fuel prices are increasing? The government is killing a vital industry and adding fuel to the ire of inlation.

Our industry is engaged in a commercial operation, the carriage of goods. All other forms of transportation engaged in this pursuit, trains, boats and planes, are entitled to rebated fuel. So why should the UK road transport industry not have a reduced rate as well?

I would love to meet David Cameron and Nick Clegg and tell them that they are screwing the life out of the road transport industry. If ever there was a time to push for an essential user rebate, it is now. Mike Presneill MD, Presneill Tipper Contractors


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