News

The European Parliament has launched a Europe-wide pilot project to build secure truck parks, after a study it published revealed that the organised theft of commercial vehicles and their loads costs the EU an estimated €8.2bn each year. The report noted that more than 90,000 truck drivers are affected each year.

An initial €5m is available for the scheme which will encourage private/public partnership ventures. Five projects have been accepted with locations including France and Germany.  The study and the scheme were the intiatives of two MEPs on the EP's Transport and Tourism Committee, Corien Wortmann-Kool from the Netherlands and Anne Jensen from Denmark. Wortmann-Kool recently opened a secure parking site in the Netherlands that's supported by private finance. She says insurance companies are taking an interest because they have so much to lose from freight theft.

Wortmann-Kool says: "Transport crime is not yet a priority, but we have a good chance of elevating it over the next few years." To this end the European Commission will host a major conference on truck crime in early 2009, an initiative which Wortmann-Kool says is encouraging. "Anne Jensen and I started as two lonely voices three years ago with the realisation that police do not give enough attention to this sort of crime. We really need to achieve results for the drivers on our highways. We should look after their safety as well as demanding that they adhere to drivers' hours regulations."

The study details the attacks drivers face, with criminals making use of bogus police officers, knockout gas to disable the driver and brute force to enter vehicles. The study recommends creating national contact points to gather information on the criminal organisations, and the exchange of information should be a top priority for enforcement agencies Europol and Eurojust. It concludes that a failure to tackle this growing problem could hinder the economic development of the EU.

K&M Haulage (Ireland) has been successful in its application to use the Orwell Crossing Lorry Park as an operating centre, despite objections from the local council. At a public inquiry last week, the deputy traffic commissioner Mary Kane indicated she would grant the licence for 12 trucks to the Suffolk-based firm, but a written decision explaining her reasons for the benefit of Suffolk Coastal District Council (SCDC) will be produced shortly. No one from SCDC appeared at the public inquiry instead, a letter outlining its opposition was read out. The council had objected on the grounds of increased traffic along the A14. However, it is understood that the Highways Agency has not lodged any objection to the application. The industry-wide campaign to protect overnight parking for truck drivers took its latest turn this week in a last-ditch effort to save the truckstop at Featherstone in the West Midlands.

The Nightowl truckstop, at Junction 1 of the M54, was earmarked for closure on 14 December by Kilmartin Properties, which became landlord of the site in March. Kilmartin wants to redevelop it as warehousing. The latest attempt to stop the change of use involved the West Midlands Business Council, the Road Haulage Association, the Freight Transport Association and the T&G section of Unite, which have jointly appealed to Kilmartin's bank, HBOS, to use its influence to reverse the closure. A statement from the campaign to keep the truckstop open says: "Nightowl was believed to have been offered a short-term lease covering the period to the appeal in return for substantial monthly rental payments which Nightowl cannot afford and makes the truckstop an unviable entity."