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Dockland Settlement

7th October 1955, Page 67
7th October 1955
Page 67
Page 67, 7th October 1955 — Dockland Settlement
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

SATISEACTORY as far as it goes, the announcement following the conference on dock delays convened by the Road Haulage Association is surprisingly moderate in its tone and scope. Although the situation has apparently grown no worse in recent months, neither has it improved. Hauliers have become more and more exasperated at finding their vehicles caught in a web practically everytime they approach a port either to deliver a load or collect cargo.

Some hauliers are, refusing to deal with dock traffic, on the ground that it interferes -too much with the efficient running of their businesses. They cannot tell for how long a vehicle will be delayed. They have difficulty in persuading the customer to pay adequate demurrage charges. Until .recently, moreover, none of the other interests concerned seemed willing to help.

The driver of the vehicle also has his share of trouble, which begins only after he has threaded his vehicle through the forbidding and congested streets that so frequently lie in his path. When he comes to the dock gates. he will expect to be held • up, perhaps for days.

There may be many causes for the 'delay. The queue ahead of him may consist for the most part of vehicles only partly loaded. The shippers may have sent the goods too early, and there is no alternative but to wait. The dock workers may not like his face, or for a dozen other reasons take their, own time. _

Within the dock the facilities are antiquated. There : arc few mechanical aids to handling. Many a manufacturer.: iChas been said, has more fork-lift trucks in his 'factory than are to be found in the whole of the Port

• of London. The dock sheds and warehouses are inadequate for the greatly increased volume of traffic they are now supposed to hold, and they are often unable to accommodate road traffic.

No Furious Protest

The situation being what it was, one might have expected a furious protest from the hauliers at the dock delays conference, supported by the representatives of trade and industry, and possibly also by some of the other organizations. In fact, the conference, having satisfied themselves that there was already machinery in existence to cope with the problems of the docks. decided on an attempt to make the machinery work.

The decision as published makes no criticisms. but the inevitable conclusion is that the machinery has not been used as much as it might in the past. Few people :know of its existence, although the circumstances that created it are still fresh in memory. Until the outbreak of war in 1939, the dock situation was not serious. The bombing of the ports, and the need to switch from the east to the west coast, taxed the available resources almost to breaking point. The Ministry of War Transport ran what was on the whole a successful campaign for the quicker. turnround, not only of shipping. but also of road vehicles and goods trains.

After the war, the need for reconstruction and for the recovery of exports, coupled with increased production and the growth of road transport, made a quick turnround at the ports as desirable as ever. A working party on the turnround of shipping recommended in 1948 that port operations consultative panels should be set up. One panel in London included representatives of shipping owners, trade unions, the National Dock Labour Board, and later the port employers, and timber trade and lighterage interests. Neither road nor rail was represented, nor for the most part the traders and manufacturers with goods for export.

In 1952, the Government set up a Ports Efficiency Committee. Their terms of reference were to investigate the working of the ports of the United Kingdom, and in particular the ports of London and Liverpool, and to secure the co-operation of all the interests concerned, including shipping and inland transport authorities, in ensuring a quicker flow through the ports of inland and outward cargo.

In an early report, the Efficiency Committee recommended that the port panels should be less conkiltative and more executive. In due course, port operations panels were set up for most of the ports. They were executive bodies, with the duty of collecting and collating operating statistics, ensuring the most effective use of existing physiCal resources, and keeping the Efficiency Committee informed of any difficulties.

Wider Basis

Port users' committees were also set up, and a Central Port Users' Committee, with representation drawn from organizations of traders, manufacturers and ship owners, thus widening the basis of, the earlier consultative committees, but still excluding the professional carrier. The functions of the users' committees are to investigate factors causing delay to shipping and to exports and imports, and to promote practical steps to. correct those, delays.

These various committees and panels make up the machinery that the recent conference are asking should be set to work to help meet the difficulties encountered by hauliers. The strategy is first to approach the national Ports Efficiency Committee and the Central Port Users' Committee, and invite them to take action.

Presumably this action will consist for the most part in summoning to the fray the various local port panels, committees and authorities. There is general agreement that most of the problems can best be tackled locally in the first instance, and that the national bodies should be asked for help in the last resort, when Government intervention seems the only hope.

Hauliers are being advised, no doubt with the assistance of local officials of the R.H.A., to take up their difficulties direct with the local bodies, in conjunction with local organizations of traders and manufacturers. Hauliers may also be expected to press for representa tion at least on the local port users' committees. The Ports Efficiency Committee were to secure the cooperation of " inland transport authorities," among other interests, and hauliers, as well as the British Transport Commission, can claim that this is not being done while they are excluded from bodies on which the "other interests" are certainly represented.

The declared intention to call another conference in due course is prudent. The machinery that hauliers are now advised to use has been available for a long time, and has had no conspicuous success. The reasons. whatever they are, may still operate. A careful and not too optimistic check should be kept on developments over the next few months.


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