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The lesson of Foulness
Page 84
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by Janus
IN most quarters the Foulness decision has been greeted as a victory for the environmental lobby. Such a judgment appears to miss the important point. The issue from the point of view of the environment was whether or not them should be a third airport at all. It has almost escaped notice that the choice presupposes an affirmative answer to the main question.
At least the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who made the official statement in the House of Commons, was in no doubt. The Government, said Mr John Davies, accepts the unanimous recommendation of the Roskill Commission that a third London airport will be needed and that the first runway should be operational by about 1980.
WHAT circumstances influenced the Government to leave Cublington alone and to prefer Foulness are irrelevant to the basic principle, important though they may be to the people who considered that their way of life was threatened and to the different set of people who are now taking up the struggle. The aim of the Government is still, as Mr Davies put it, to encourage the development of aviation and to maintain Britain's share of civil aviation in the international field.
Only the means of achieving the aim may be modified. To some extent economy and even efficiency are to be sacrificed if the inconvenience to the public can thereby be diminished. The project itself will not be abandoned.
Road operators may draw a lesson and take some comfort from this. In the interests of trade and industry road transport cannot be persecuted beyond a certain point. At present there is no alternative even remotely visible, such as VTOL in the case of aircraft. The suggestion so often made that the railways could fill the gap is mere wishful thinking and nostalgia.
Sooner or later, without having to sit through the three-year ordeal of ' a commission, the Government will find itself saying as much. The village Hampdens of a thousand Cublingtons have been inveighing with dauntless breast against the heavy lorry and may even persuade themselves that they have made some progress. It hardly seems likely that they will prevail in the end.
pAT on cue comes the Minister for Transport Industries. Mr John Peyton has told the Freight Transport Association that, after many safeguards have been taken, he may be able to allow heavier lorries than at present. The reservations are severe. There must be something near to a comprehensive network of good roads, among other things providing good access to the ports, and the heavier vehicles will be restricted to those roads which can accommodate them.
Such a cautious pronouncement can hardly have inspired dancing and a torchlight procession through the streets of Croydon. It is at least a step in the right direction. Mr Peyton, whose functions fall within the Department of the Environment, must plant his feet with care. To the casual view, there is little support on which he can rely.
Perhaps the Government was fortunate in one respect over the issue of the third airport. The burghers and commuters of Cublington raised such a storm of protest that they seemed to be the embodiment of the spirit of the environment. The various organizations which have claimed the subject as their own have generally welcomed the switch to Foulness. The Government has been able to rely for support on a number of particularly vocal interests bearing votes or the claim to influence votes.
THERE are no votes for the heavy lorry. That at any rate must sometimes be the impression of the politicians. On these terms it was courageous of Mr Peyton to have ventured as far as he did at the PTA dinner.
Much will depend on the Minister's exact intention. Few operators would be greatly alarmed at the prospect of compulsory lorry routes for the trunking portion of a journey. They would still expect permission for the vehicle to leave the route in order to collect or deliver its load. Any attempt to interfere with this freedom would produce so great a crop of exceptions as to become impracticable.
THE main advantage of routeing lorries is to take them away from the many small towns, villages and beauty spots where an actual call by a heavy lorry is something of an event, however many may go rumbling through. The benefit of direct delivery without transhipment would soon become evident to the villager who was denied it.
An unwelcome by-product of t campaign against the heavy lorry, it is be) said, is its effect on the young man looki for a career after he leaves school. prefers to enter an industry which is si regarded by other people. The accusatic about juggernauts and killer lorries beginning to make their mark even at academic level.
IF this is really happening, it particularly unfortunate at a time wl so many operators are complaini about the problem of recruitment. 1 proposal that the age limits for 1 categories of heavy goods vehicle drivi licence should be spaced is intended encourage the school leaver who is bound hesitate at the long period of apprenticesl that he must serve until he reaches the a of 21 and is at last able to drive somethi heavier than three tons.
Unless something can be done to hi him, he is likely to look for another jt Only a comparatively few youths will interested or dedicated enough to stay in t pupal stage from the time they leave scho Most applicants will be nearer 21 years th 16. The fear is too many of them will ho to become drivers because they have ma singularly little success in any otl occupation.
THE reluctance of the Government reduce the minimum age is mainly c to the bad accident record of c drivers between the ages of 17 and 21. T is not seen as a reason for raising 1 driving age limit in general, but is s apparently an overwhelming argument i leaving the lorry-driving limit where it is.
Presumably, the unspoken basis for I distinction is that the reckless car driver often more of a risk to himself than to otl people. Behind this thought, if it exists, the curious device by which the champic of the environment seem able largely discdunt or ignore the nuisance and dams caused by the car but resent the lel disturbance that can be attributed to heavy lorry.
MORE and more frequently, t environmental factor interven where it may only make thin more difficult. The young man with respect for lorry drivers and their skills likely himself to become a driver w] exercises care and courtesy when he has take a route unsuitable for heavy vehiclo and wherever possible will avoid such route out of consideration for other peop He will not care to take on the job if he fe( there is a prejudice against him before starts, whereas the less sensitive young mi will have fewer scruples.
The age limit may be anoth discouragement to the better type of drivt The same climate of public opinion th made him hesitate in the first place plac yet another obstacle in his path if succeeds in keeping the Government in t] present frame of mind about the minimu driving age.