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Foreign haulage companies should be forced to pay to use Welsh roads to help local hauliers remain more competitive, according to Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru. Plaid says such a charge should be made to give Welsh hauliers "a level playing and to ensure there will be less freight on the roads and more on rail". A spokesman for the party says more details about the proposals will be revealed in two weeks' time.

Meirion Davies, fleet manager of Llanelli-based Owens Road Services (ORS),  says he would welcome any measures to help local hauliers but questions whether they should be confined to Wales: "It's well known that foreign operators bring in fuel from the Continent which is much cheaper and so they can undercut us all the time. "But it's not just in Wales, it's all over - if you asked hauliers in the Midlands you'd get exactly the same response."

ORS has been hard hit by the difference in fuel costs. Davies says it used to run 20 or 30 loads per week to the Continent but this has dwindled "to hardly any".