• The Department of Transport has pledged to crack down on overloaded lorries.
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Traffic examiners aim to weigh 99,000 HGVs in 1988/89, an increase of 35% on the 1987/88 figure of 74,000, which was itself 26% higher than the previous year. Local authority examiners plan to weigh a further 30,000 lorries during 1987/88.
Over 13,000 foreign trucks will be weighed this year, compared with just under 6,000 in 1986/87.
The crackdown follows a highly critical report from the influential all-party Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), criticising the high number of overloaded lorries on Britain's roads.
The DTp rejected complaints by the PAC that there had been a lack of urgency and a delay in tackling the effect of heavy lorries on Britain's roads. The MPs' comments had not taken any account of "resource constraints" such as shortage of cash, and the implications that diverting money to dealing with the problem of heavy lorries would have on other areas of research.
Nevertheless, it acknowledged that action to reduce the adverse effects was a high priority. This summer five major ferry ports will have automatic pre-selection equipment installed.
On the question of weighbridges, the Department said that the number had doubled to 60 in the past five years.