Test fees indignation
Page 45
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I am very indignant at the increase of hgv test fees from £5.50 per test to £11. Even I, without reference to my Japanese calculator can work out that this is a 100 per cent increase on the previous figure and in times of government controls on inflation it seems to me a flagrant violation of their principles. I should be interested to know if this increase has been referred to the Prices Commission and I wonder if your good selves or the Road Haulage Association would be prepared to contact the Department of Environmant in this respect.
There is, of course, another entirely different aspect to the morality of this situation whereby central government on our behalf have decided that goods vehicles should be tested, a principle with which I am not in disagreement, and certainly improvements have been seen beyond perhaps our wildest expectations.
However, if society requires improvements in living conditions which include the cost of improvements in the condition of motor vehicles then I believe it should in
certain limits have to pay the price.
It appears from the astronomic increase in hgv test fees that, to rniscoin a phrase, the piper not only wishes to play the tune but requires to be paid for his services.
Are other private enterprise companies reacting in a similar way?
D. J. ONSLOW, Managing Director, Gibbs-Palmer Ltd, Norwich.
[No! This increase was not referred to the Commission.— See CM March 26.—Ed.1