TAX PLEA: 2
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I would like to send a message to the government to show them what the crippling fuel taxes of up to 85% of cost is doing to us as an industry. I feel that they are taxing the air that we breathe and we will not survive much longer because fuel is the lifeblood of British industry.
What consumers don't realise is that it is not only the industry being taxed but everyone who shops at a supermarket, because fuel prices are making prices so much higher than before. We see more and more foreign delivery trucks in this country because it is cheaper to bring them in from abroad than it is to hire our own people, purely because of the cost of our fuel. We can no longer be competitive and the British haulier has not long to live.
As a mother of two. I understand nobody likes the big vehicles on our roads. But they are a necessary evil and they are, quite rightly, highly regulated. Our standards are high and we work very hard at doing it right. There are cowboys in every industry and law-abiding hauliers hate them as much as anyone else.
Until a viable alternative is found to trucks on the roads we have to be there. If more foreign trucks come into the country, then we will have no regulatory controls over their maintenance and my children will be at more risk on the roads then than they are now.
There will be people out there who don't agree with me, and I do understand the problems. But please understand that a large number of people are employed in the transport sector and the associated industries, and all we are told is that it is our tough luck.
Well, if the industry is not needed then we deserve to go down the drain. But find us a viable alternative that will not involve foreign vehicles trundling down our roads, getting lost and being more of a hazard to our road users and our children's health.
Help campaign against the fuel increases: they affect us all. TO Butler, Steve Butler Haulage.
Ferndown, Dorset.