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Cotswold LGV ban to be put on hold until autumn 2007...

7th September 2006
Page 8
Page 8, 7th September 2006 — Cotswold LGV ban to be put on hold until autumn 2007...
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Gloucestershire County Council has scaled back its

plans to ban trucks from many of the county's roads after strong opposition. Guy Sheppard reports.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE County Council (GCC) is throttling back on plans for draconian restrictions on truck movements following a storm of protest from hauliers.

Restrictions were due to be imposed throughout the Cotswolds, starting with a pilot scheme later this year (CM 15 June).

But Lawrence Elcocks, major projects manager for GCC, says the pilot scheme between Stroud, Painswick and Northleach is now unlikely to be established before autumn 2007.

"'I'here's no point in rushing in on this and trying to apply some thing that isn't going to work," Elcocks explains.

"The policing of it will be an absolute nightmare. We would learn from the pilot and, if it is successful. roll it out to adjacent areas."

Based on a similar project in Leicestershire, he estimates that restrictions throughout the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) could take up to a decade to introduce.

The council's Local Transport Plan for 2006-2011 included a night-time ban on trucks throughout the 2,000 square-mile AONB, apart from the A40 and A417, with a 7.5-tonne limit on all minor roads and some B-roads.

Elcocks says: "We accept that it could have been worded better but, at the time, that is what went in."

The local Freight Quality Partnership will discuss the plan this week.

Mike Farmer, regional director of the Road Haulage Association, says: "We would like to see a mutually agreeable solution that meets [Gloucestershire County Council's] requirements for managing lorry traffic but does not have an adverse effect on the local economy and hauliers."


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