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Another fall in UK HGV traffic
Page 8
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• UK hauliers' share of HGV traffic going to and from the Continent has slumped to nearly heti the level it was seven years ago. But there is disagreement about what is the main cause.
Latest figures from the Department for Transport (DfT) reveal that UK hauliers cornered just 27% of the market during the first three months of this year-1% down on the same period last year.
Freight Transport Association external affairs director Geoff Dossetter says: "The downward trend in the UK's share of the international haulage market seems unstoppable.
"In 1996 there was a 50/50 share between UK and foreign vehicles coming from Europe. Soon, that will have been halved so that only one in four will be British.'
Dossetter says fuel duty at twice the European average is a key reason behind the decline. "Margins in international transport are so narrow—and competition so strong—that high UK fuel duty clearly places our home-based industry at a disadvantage."
But Nick Charlesworth, divisional general manager of Laser Transport International in Kent, says exchange rates are the main reason why its truck fleet has shrunk from 25 to 14 over the last five years.
"The pound has been artificially high so we have been at a 20% disadvantage before we start. If you are a British international operator, you don't fuel up in the UK."
He adds that the recent strengthening of the euro against the pound is unlikely to benefit UK hauliers immediately. It has got to be a very long-term trend because we won't be rushing out to buy lots of tractors and trailers on the basis of an exchange rate change over the last few months."