A commercial RHA . .
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Freddie Plaskett looks forward to expanding services for RHA members — the first to start within a few weeks. The industry, he said, needs a watchdog with a loud bark
FREDDIE PLASKETT, directorgeneral of the Road Haulage Association, outlined the present situation of the hire or reward sector of the haulage industry and referred to current problems. His paper went on to outline policies which should be adopted now for future benefit.
Mr Plaskett concluded with a review of the role of the RHA in the industry today, and predicted that the Association's revised and modernised administrative structure will combine with expanding services to members "to consolidate the RHA's continuing position as the watchdog and voice of the hire or reward sector".
Mr Plaskett reminded the delegates that road haulage is a selfevident fact of life in Britain today.
"There are no man-made laws to force commerce and industry to send the vast proportion of their materials and goods from place to place by road," he said. It is the laws of economics which dictate the use of the quickest, most efficient and most reliable means of movement available.
Because rail, air, or inland waterways transport almost invariably means costly double handling, road haulage with its accompanying flexibility, has emerged as the most popular method of moving freight.
He felt it is not an exaggeration to say that the slump of the past three years has left the industry a shadow of its muscular self in the best years of the 1970s. Bankruptcies and slashing fleet reductions have characterised this period and many of those who over-borrowed or over-specialised as a result of the years of plenty have lived to regret their actions.
"If there is a silver lining to this black cloud, it is that those companies which have survived are more efficient than ever before — their performance sharpened by the discipline imposed by the recession", he said. The industry has pared down and is efficient, keen and willing to serve its customers' needs. "A simple, straightforward situation ripe for exploitation by commerce and industry to everyone's benefit," he said.
He argued that road haulage had progressively become on the one hand a milch cow for successive governments and on the other, a political football.
"The industry staggers under the burden of central government taxation of new vehicles, repairs, fuel, lubricants and employment of labour. Locally, haulage companies pay punitive local rate charges and they are tormented by detailed local planning regulations," he said.
Politically, it had become fashionable for certain shades of political opinion to consider that nationalisation must be the long-term aim for haulage — partly for environmental reasons, but clearly also as a measure to promote protectionism for other means of movement, notably railways, he said.
"To attempt to follow the tortuous thought processes of some of our politicians on this issue would take more time and space than there is available. Commerce and industry must be left with a free choice of transport for their needs. Any interference in that choice is not and never can be in the long-term interests of this country or its consumers."
He then turned his attention to the environmental lobbies and their increasing pressure to control haulage operations and the movement of heavy lorries.
No one can deny the problems caused by heavy vehicles competing with local traffic and other road users in small villages and other close-knit communities where the modern heavy goods vehicle is out of scale with the environment, he said.
• "Successive governments have been guilty of failing to build a road network commensurate with the wholly predictable growth of road haulage and designed to keep heavy lorries away from people.
"Our Secretary of State may like to note that 200 bypasses for Britain is not enough. We need up to 200 bypasses per county — or, better still, real progress on plans for new roads."
The problem with invironmentalists is the difficulty of sorting the serious and well intentioned from the cynical and frivolous, he said, suggesting that a start can be made by starving environmental groups of "backdoor" public funds.
The Armitage report is a fundamental issue of crucial importance to hauliers and their customers, and although the Government has pronounced itself in favour of heavier vehicles and has been fully and loyally supported by the road transport industry, by the CBI and by other influential bodies on the issue, it has hovered on the brink of a decision for far too long, he commented.
But Mr Plaskett was not despondent. "Despite its severe shake out, the industry can face the future with confidence," he said. "Manufacturers must and will provide quieter vehicles, cleaner in terms of air pollution, hopefully heavier but at the same time less aggressive looking."
He called on the Government to do the consumer a great favour and the country's economy a good turn by recognising the fundamental importance of the haulage industry to all forms of productive enterprise.
"It should recognise also the difficulties which it is creating for the industry by the introduction of ever more restrictive legislation such as the 1982 Transport Bill, and it should seek to assist rather than inhibit the development of modern haulage companies operating modern vehicles from well found and up to date operating centres," he said.
Looking to the role of the RHA, the director-general went on: "It is axiomatic in these days of intense state involvement in all our activities, that every branch of commerce and industry will sooner or later feel a need to exercise its collective clout in defence of its lawful activities."
The RHA is the only trade and employers' association for any company engaged in hire or reward road haulage, he said, and it has taken its responsibilities seriously.
The RHA maintains close and constant contact with Central Government, its officials in the Department of Transport and members of both Houses of Parliament, he said. The result is that the RHA can take a good deal of the credit for such freedoms as the haulage sector still operates under in Britain — "freedom which, despite encroaching legislation, is still in many ways greater than that enjoyed by its European counterparts".
Road hauliers are a robust, forthright fraternity, he said. The RHA, reflecting that fact, is thoroughly democratic but it also tends to be conservative in outlook, resenting change to the Association.
"One result of these characteristics is that the RHA's structure and its diffused network of permanent offices has remained unchanged for many years, suffering sharply escalating overheads and seemingly oblivious to the march of tech nology and to advances in methods of communication which have enabled other associations and organisations to concentrate with no loss of effectiveness," he commented.
Changes in the RHA structure are well under way. Early this year its council decided to opt for change and did so without half-measures. The head office was moved from expensive, leased accommodation to a freehold building in West London; a new, mainframe computer was bought and installed; accounts and membership records, previously held in each of 14 areas, were centralised.
The 14 area offices throughout Britain are being reduced to eight. Each will have a manager who will have on his desk a VDU on-line to the head office computer, which will provide him with instantly retrievable information on membership records, Association services and his own accounts.
The first phase of the reorganisation relates only to administration, he said. The second phase, due to be completed in March 1983, is an "in depth" study of its structure and procedures. The composition of the national council, its committees, its functional groups, its accounting processes and other activities, will be placed under the micros cope of a band of elders select by the council to report a, recommend on changes fleet sary.
The RHA is now to becon commercial, he said.
"With management conce trated in a much less diffui structure, with new technoloE relieving it it of many of the al ministrative chores which ha% hitherto claimed much of working day, the time is not fi distant — a matter of weeks onl — when the RHA will be poise to expand its activities in th field of commercial services fc the benefit of its members," h explained. Proceeds from good and services purchased throug the RHA will help swell the fund of the RHA.
Every branch of industr needs a watchdog with a lou bark, he said, and all the err ployers or operators in that ir dustry should be prepared t subscribe to its licence. "Despit its rapid evolution into a slim mer, more commercially awar organisation, using high tech nology to achieve economies o scale, the RHA will maintain faitl with its members as their cor porate voice to be raised loud!) and strongly in their defenc( wherever and whenever the& vital interests are threatened,' he added.