pad alarm souride
Page 9
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
REASING road freight movements during the next 20 years uld be seen as a warning to European countries of what is to be ided rather than as something to be strived for, said Nigel Haigh, le volume of transport is not easure of progress, he said. ri specialists in freight transspeak of a transport prob, what they often mean is a match between the expected lands for freight and the tisions of roads and other ities to enable the freight to 'freely.
le other transport problem is overlooked is that the lic wants material prosperity resents the intrusion of vy lorries and the motorways that are built for them, Mr Haigh said.
"The difficulty that the British Government has had in increasing lorry weights is just one example of public concern at the growth in the movement of freight by road.
The ,British Government recognises that such growth is en) vironmentally undesirable by arguing that heavier lorries will reduce it but will not go on to admit that there must be a limit to the amount of freight movement we can impose on ourselves."
Speaking at the Ninth International Symposium of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, he said: "The EEC freight forecasts show a fourfold increase in international freight between 1974 and the year 2000 on a low growth assumption and an 11-fold increase on a high growth assumption."
"Have the experts who drew up these forecasts ever attempted to visualise what this means in terms of lorries pounding past peoples' houses or in the massive road building programmes needed to accommodate them?" he asked.