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6th September 2012
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Councils now have more powers to sort out local road issues, but the industry is worried that they’re just another stick with which to beat hauliers

Words: Chris Tindall

VOLUNTARY SCHEMES allowing the public to snoop on LGVs and report what they think are overweight vehicles are being introduced with little or no thought about their effect and cost on hauliers, according to a CM investigation.

A sharp rise in the number of Lorry Watch projects across the country is leading to fears that some irms are being victimised by “amateurish” council plans, which are popular with voters but cause resentment in the industry.

Court appearance

One Lorry Watch scheme in Wiltshire has already resulted in a court appearance for a haulier in a case that was adjourned and was being re heard as CM went to press.

Wiltshire Council was unable to provide further details, but a spokesman says: “There are also a number of other repeat infringements under investigation, and it is likely that further prosecutions will follow.” The schemes are cheap to set up and enable teams of volunteers to report CVs thought to be breaching local weight restrictions. But trade associations have expressed alarm that the general public can’t tell the correct weight of a vehicle, even with basic training.

Community engagement

There are also suspicions that new powers handed to local authorities, which allow them to classify roads, are driving the interest in Lorry Watch schemes and unnecessary weight restrictions. “The biggest problem is the amateurishness of it and whether we are going to get victimised,” says Road Haulage Association (RHA) infrastructure manager Chrys Rampley. “Engagement with the local community is probably a better option.” Rampley says many local authorities don’t have the resources to enforce which types of vehicles are allowed on different classes of road, and she adds: “Making an A road a B road is cheaper for maintenance and cheaper for things such as bridge strengthening.

“I can see we are suddenly going to have a lurry of weight limits introduced.” The Freight Transport Association says it can’t be sure if there is a link between these new powers and the growth in Lorry Watch schemes. “There’s been anti-lorry feeling around for a while,” explains its head of road network management policy Malcolm Bingham.

However, he adds: “Our nervousness is that local authorities might get led by popular opinion, rather than at the need to get goods from A to B.

“There’s a big problem if there’s a massive detour for operators to take. It puts up costs and also increases the amount of carbon and emissions; things they are trying to control.”

An era of localism?

But RHA policy director Jack Semple disagrees: “I would not be at all surprised to see that sort of trend go handin-hand with the general emphasis on localism, and a reaction to what’s happening with sat-navs and foreign vehicles taking local roads.

“There’s a sense that local authorities are moving into an era of localism and doing more of what they like, and there’s a group of locals who are probably going to pick up on this.” ■

A HAULIER’S STORY

Douglas Scaife describes the Lorry Watch scheme in Papplewick, Nottinghamshire, as “crackers” and populated by “busybodies” with nothing else to do.

Scaife is a director and driver at Riponbased C&D Scaife and says he was caught out by eight people in high-vis vests while making farm deliveries.

He blames poor signage for the confusion, but adds that he was let off from a fine after explaining he had a valid reason for entering the 7.5-tonne weight limit zone in his six-wheel 26-tonner.

But it means that in future he must take a detour through Nottingham, which includes driving through a housing estate, past a school and along a narrow road that forces him to drive onto the pavement. “It adds another six or seven miles to my journey; about another half an hour going through town,” he says. “There’s no sense why it is weight limited. There probably are drivers using it as a short cut, but I have 20 years’ experience doing multidrop farm deliveries.” Scaife adds: “There are too many busybodies in Lorry Watch. It needs people who know what they are doing. There are umpteen villages with curtain twitchers with nothing else to do. We are not stupid, we are professional at what we do. We aren’t going to cut through a village for the sake of it. It’s quicker to go via a main road than to try and cut out two miles on a back road.”

Watching the watchers

As well as Wiltshire, CM is aware of Lorry Watch schemes in Nottinghamshire and Gloucestershire and of interest increasing in Somerset, Berkshire, Monmouthshire, Kent and Hampshire.

In Wiltshire alone there are six schemes in operation, with more in the pipeline. The council says that as of 1 August more than 1,200 vehicles have been reported to Trading Standards as being overweight. However, it has also admitted that 15% of the reports were incorrect and related to vehicles that were not breaching any restrictions.

“People look and think they are quite big and report it as an 18-tonner because it looks like one to them,” says Pete Butler, RHA employment services manager. “The general public doesn’t know the difference. How many people know what the weight limit is for a tri-axle unit with a single-axle trailer? They’ll get it wrong.” But not all counties are rushing to launch Lorry Watch. Buckinghamshire’s Beacon Freight Quality Partnership was set up to understand hauliers’ issues, and chair and county councillor Avril Davies says communication is the answer. “There’s no point in Lorry Watch if there’s no other route to go on. It’s all very well saying don’t run down this village, but they will run down another route in another village instead.

“We need to speak to logistics managers; we know they are rushing, they have targets and times they must arrive and so on. Lorry Watch is seen as a quick win, but I don’t think it’s a substantial win. There are big, underlying issues that need to be looked at.”


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