News

The FTA is poised to mount a public challenge to the government over a decade of policy failure on road freight. It will release the findings of a report by consultants MDS Transmodal of what the government needs to do - just as transport secretary Douglas Alexander is scheduled to address the association's annual luncheon in London. Pointedly, the report highlights issues now. That contrasts with the report from former BA chief Road Eddington, which looks ahead to 2015  and has been repeatedly delayed. The FTA says its report is more like what the government should have commissioned if it needed more work to be done.

MDS Transmodal was asked to do the study when it became obvious that Eddington's study would be of little value, despite his best efforts. Those fears only increased this spring when he was additionally asked to do detailed environmental work and again recently when publication was again delayed. The task given to Eddington "is simply not good enough in our view", the FTA tells Motor Transport. "You don't have to be cynical to say it is a delaying tactic. The government has failed to investment sufficient funds in road freight since 1997." Top industry figures have spoken out. John Allen, the DHL Supply Chain chief executive and former FTA president, who is little given to public controversy, told the Sunday Times: "We are a trading nationwe are not being hanged, we are being slowly throttled" by the transport infrastructure.

Bob Goldfield, CEO of Port of Dover, said "it is almost as if we are content to settle for third world standards". TRL and Heriot-Watt University have been asked to produce a fast-track, in-depth study of longer heavier vehicles for the UK government. The TRL-led study will cover the technical, infrastructure, environmental and economic issues of LHVs - and not just the 25.25m, 60-tonne type. Motor Transport understands that there is likely to be a wide-ranging public debate, with the views of industry and the general public being canvassed. The haulage sector appears to be split down the middle. Some firms have already worked out the cost, safety and environmental gains they could make. In an extraordinary U-turn from the dithering of the past three years, the DfT has instructed that the report must report by next spring - possibly because the government has caught the mood swing towards LHVs on the Continental and doesn't want to be left out. Brussels aims to produce a new freight transport stance next summer.

• Professor Alan McKinnon of Heriot-Watt told the RHA national lunch two weeks ago that he initially opposed any increase in lorry weights from 32 tons but then came to see the benefits of 44 tonners. His report for the DfT in the late 1990s was influential.
• Lord Bradshaw, Liberal Democrat transport spokesman and a career railwayman, has asked the government to "delay taking any action on the dimensions or weights of heavy goods vehicles until the breaches of the drivers' hours regulations are addressed by those providing and using road haulage".