Lorry areas network plar gets Lords' approval
Page 24
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
New Highways Bill section would give Govt and town councils powers to s( up sites for goods handling, storage, night parking and drivers' rest facilities
from our Parliamentary correspondent
• A network of "lorry areas", where goods vehicles can be loaded and unloaded, and parked overnight is being proposed by the Government.
A new section has been added to the Highways Bill, now going through Parliament, which enables highway authorities to establish these sites for use specifically by heavy lorries and auxiliary vehicles.
When he successfully asked the Upper House to agreeto this addition to the Bill, Lord Sandford, Under-Secretary for Environment, spoke of a "network of strategic points with good access to the main roads of the country which road haulage operators could use in order to break bulk, transfer loads and so make it easier for vehicles of appropriate size to be used for different types of work".
Larger vehicles could make long-distance journeys between towns and the smaller ones work within the towns, explained Lord Sandford.
The proposed sites could also serve for the overnight parking of lorries, which would reduce the problem of urban parking, and mean that security ofvehicles and loads would be improved.
Enabling powers to set up "lorry areas" were being given to both Government and local highway authorities, went on Lord Sandford. It was to be left to private enterprise to operate the trans-shipment, the warehousing, the refreshment and accommodation facilities on the sites.
He emphasized that powers would be given for the compulsory acquisition of land for the sites.
It would be up to the local authorities, the road haulage industry and other interests to join with the Department of the Environment in working out details for giving practical effect to the proposals.
This review would take into account the outcome of the consideration which the Government had already announced it was giving to the further development of the inter-urban highway system, added Lord Sandford. It would also take full account of all the safety aspects.
These provisions, he said, were aimed both at enhancing the quality of life in our cities, through improving the environment, and at furthering the economic interest of one of our more important industries, road haulage.
Welcoming the change in the Bill "we are gratefu! for small mercies"—Labour Peer Lord Pargiter said it would go a long way towards helping those authorities who wanted to restrict a good deal of loading, unloading and transfer loading which went on at present on the highway and which could be conveniently done elsewhere.
But Lord Lucas of Chilworth criticized the idea of warehousing facilities at the lorry areas.
Security would go, he claimed, because many different kinds of people were involved, and many kinds of operation were going on. There would then be exactly the opposite of what he believed the lorry area was for—there would be a congestion of traffic, with many small lorries and vans going into the area, perhaps even a security area.
There was a great difference between offloading part of a load directly into a warehouse, with its staging, cranes and so on, and moving it onto a different-sized lorry or van, said Lord Lucas.
Safety factors
If the operation were to be efficient, one needed a great deal of handling machinery, all of which would add to the cost.
If the service station facilities included fuelling, repairing and maintenance, then Lord Lucas had further criticisms. Most longdistance hauliers already had their own arrangements, maybe their contractual arrangements for fuelling.
There was a very high fire risk, pointed out Lord Lucas. If there were, say, 300 vehicles worth perhaps £30,000 each including loads, concentrated in a parking area, there would --if it were a maximum security area—be one or possibly two exit/entrances.
To service this number of vehicles, 60,000 gallons of fuel might be underground, with two or three outlets. The fire risk was enormous.
Lord Lucas also mentioned the tremendously high cost of installation—to equip a fuelling area might cost E35,000 to £55,000. To equip such a service area to look after emergency repairs of commercial vehicles might cost a similar amount.
How any organization, whether operated by private enterprise or a public authority, could be made to pay. he did not know, said Lord Lucas. In the first place such an investment had to be staffed, and already staff was terribly short in industry.
The real need was for lorry drivers to know that there was a place in a particular ar where they might park their lorries—securi if the load so demanded—go to the levet° have a shower, a meal and a bed. Nowhere this country or. he believed, in Europe, ‘A such a facility provided.
Lord Teviot also said that the scheme shot be confined. He believed that there should a pilot scheme, of perhaps four areas. If went wholeheartedly into building about or 60 of these lorry areas they might be a wht lot of white elephants.
Some home comforts had to be provided • drivers, said Lord Teviot. The driver shot have his own cubicle, and perfectly clean a not too expensive food. Like Lord Lucas, expressed concern about the proposal to insi "public sanitary conveniences" in the areas both thought that ordinary members of t public could not be excluded.
Lord Winterbottom agreed that this was but, he said, all that could be done was to 5 that the facilities for handling and stori goods were secure.
Lord Winterbottom thought that these art would allow larger lorries to be used. One not want them trundling through Oxford Chester, he said, but there was no reason vi they should not go on the motorways and to a point where they could transfer their be to smaller vehicles.
Lord Sandford promised that the idea o pilot scheme would be taken fully into accou He did not agree that the special areas wol be a "free for all" and a provision for 1 public at large.
Details of how they would be designed a used remained to be worked out, but it wo not be far short of the mark to envisage thi areas rather like docks, where one ship ca in to bunker, to give leave to the crew, to d with its cargo. Road vehicles had limited acci into a dock area if they had business there, collect cargo or to bring passengers in E out, and so on. This was the kind of regulat that would be applied.
It might be that some part of these art would be open to the public, added Li Sandford, or perhaps the whole of them. E certainly areas where there was fire risk a valuable cargo would clearly be subject full security.
Recalling Lord Winterbottom's statemi about larger lorries, Lord Sandford said he v glad to see that the Peer saw, as the Gave ment did, that at least one of the value contributions which the scheme would ma in due course, would be the full developm. of the latest technology in road haulage.