Memorandum by the South West Transport
Network (RH 44)
ROAD HAULAGE
We learn that the Sub-committee is to consider the
road haulage industry. Our interest particularly concerns the
Government's declared wish that, to help relieve road congestion
and generally to improve the environment, more freight should
be carried by rail, and where practicable by coastal shipping
and canals.
We are pleased to note recent comments at a Railway
Study Association meeting on 9 February 2000 by Mike Grant, its
Chief Executive, that the needs of freight will be taken seriously
by the Strategic Rail Authority in its approach to rail developments.
He stresses the significance of general distribution and inter-modal
projects requiring reliable, predictable transits in a competitive
market. But adds that this is within distorted economics. Government
action will be needed if a more `level playing field' is to be
achieved. Tax policies are affected and the extent to which increased
funding is available for improving the capacity of rail to carry
a lot more freight, along with increasing numbers of passengers.
Local authorities and Regional Development Agencies
are also affected. It is obvious to anyone observing lorries on
motorways that almost all `distribution' traffic is in single-vehicle-size
consignments. And it is a matter of public concern that large
vehicles penetrate urban roads and country lanes which are not
suited for them. Often they are underloaded, even empty. Experience
of recent years has shown that building more motorways does not
so much solve the problem as aggravate it. What is needed is designated
freight distribution zones with rail as well as road connection,
where planning policies direct development to centres where `break
bulk' is carried out, and for which freight grants should be available.
From such centres smaller vehicles should be
encouraged for distribution of mixed loads to retail outlets,
and local authorities should be empowered increasingly to prohibit
large vehicles from entering specified areas or using unsuitable
roads.
And freight businesses, increasingly to be hoped
of a multi-modal kind, need encouragement in the development of
single-wagon and container consignments by such as `Enterprise'
trains, which the former chief of EWS, ED Burkhardt, recognised
as the major potential growth area for rail. Such `zones' need
to be located where trains can be economically terminated. The
Association of Metropolitan Authorities, inco-operation with British
Rail, produced in the early 1980s a report identifying some suitable
zones, but dissolution of Metropolitan Counties, and the then
Government's disregard of rail, buried the report. That concept
needs to be resurrected.
Encouragement is also needed for reconnecting
rail to where it has been withdrawn from freight generation areas.
Ports are a particular example. To their credit the British Port
Company are working with Railtrack with a view to having connection
to Royal Portbury, a modern dock built on the south side of the
Avon estuary while rail services were discontinued from Portshead.
The new connection is associated with our proposal for the `S
Route', a passenger service as part of what we hope will become
Greater Bristol Metro. Until 1950s some 70 per cent of
freight through Avonmouth went forward by rail. Given favourable
conditions similar volume could still be achieved. Other smaller
ports in The West, for which reconnection should be considered
include places like: Poole, Teignmouth, Portland (near Weymouth)
and Instow (near Bideford).
Public money provided £88 million for the
Batheaston bypass, a controversial 3-mile road at near-motorway
standard through an environmentally intrusive area, while further
road development southward is not proceeding. What is needed here
is upgrading of the rail route between Bristol and Southampton.
Rail access to Europe is also important. At
present the only way trains between The West and Channel Tunnel
(or for that matter anywhere else north of the Thames) is via
the West London Line and congested south London suburbia. Yet
a simple flyover crossing the Brighton line at Redhill could provide
a route via Reading and Tonbridge—the cost would be a fraction
of what is spent on motorway junctions. Steps are also needed
for better, more customer-friendly, easier and less costly, relations
with European railways, whose freight businesses are in course
of major commercial changes with organisations like Cargo SI and
Railion. This should help the freight zone schedule for development
in Bristol's Severnside. (Comments in the February edition of
Railway Gazette are relevant).
Dick Drew
Railway Development Society (Severnside)
February 2000
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