Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420-439)
MR TIM
INGLETON, COUNCILLOR
PAUL WATKINS
AND MR
DAVID SHEPPARD
27 FEBRUARY 2008
Q420 Chairman: But would you think
other local authorities might find it different?
Mr Ingleton: I think that is possibly
the case, yes.
Q421 Chairman: In any particular
way?
Mr Ingleton: I think it is often
difficult to address these issues single-handedly. What they need
to do is work with the freight industry. For example, we have
experiences in Dover where (in liaison with the County Council)
we have actually produced a freight map which seeks to channel
freight traffic to the appropriate quarters in Kent, and equally
we have been working with the Highways Agency and also the Department
for Transport on the overnight lorry parking issue.
Q422 Chairman: Just to relate it
specifically to Dover before I pass you on to one of my colleagues,
you have for a very long time been operating this upmarket queue
when you get a lot of pressure on the port. Am I correct in saying
it is some years now?
Mr Ingleton: It is, Chairman,
yes.
Q423 Chairman: Is that the right
way round, or do you think that actually by now somebody ought
to have come up with a better solution than having a lorry park
on a major road?
Mr Ingleton: Yes, Chairman, I
would absolutely agree with that. It has been in operation nearly
ten years and I think from a number of studies which have taken
place over that time they all really point to the need for a permanent
solution.
Q424 Chairman: What is being suggested
by the local authority then?
Mr Ingleton: We have been engaging
with the County Council, who I understand are in liaison with
the Department for Transport looking at alternatives, and I think
it is almost certain that it will be a lorry park in some way,
shape or form on both routes.
Q425 Chairman: So what you might
call a leisurely approach, Mr Ingleton?
Mr Ingleton: I think it has been
difficult and probably too long in the making.
Q426 Chairman: Measured, perhaps?
Mr Ingleton: Yes.
Councillor Watkins: Slow progress,
Chairman.
Chairman: Yes, just ten years.
Q427 Mr Scott: A question for Councillor
Watkins and Mr Ingleton. You have got two and a half million HGVs
passing through Dover each year, 10,000 a day. That must have
some very high impact levels on both your strategic routes and
indeed urban routes, and I would be interested to know what some
of those impacts are and also how it has affected the regeneration
of certain areas, because obviously it must have an impact on
the regeneration if you have got vehicles coming through with
the sorts of loads which are coming through Dover.
Councillor Watkins: If we take
Dover particularly, the town centre is severed from its seafront
communities, maritime community, by the A20 and the effects of
that are that we have disparate communities there which are not
able to engage. We have major levels of deprivation. The economy
is based primarily in and around the port industries and any hiccup
in the port, particularly on the freight side of it, affects the
town. One of the interesting factors as far as the issue of Operation
Stack is concerned is that when Operation Stack is in progress
nothing comes through Dover and that is the time the town flows
beautifully and it becomes a place where the quality of life improves.
The effect of the freight moving through Dover was described by
a Regional Agency member as "a moving wall of steel"
just passing through the town centre. It cuts community off from
community. We have poor air quality measurement zones in and around
the town area which deal with both shipping emissions and freight
emissions predominantly. So it has a very, very major impact upon
our community.
Mr Ingleton: I think also, Chairman,
the two routes which we have to Dover operate in slightly different
ways and it is our contention that we need an urgent upgrade of
those routes. The problem we face is that when there is the slightest
interruption on one route, there is a transference of traffic
to the other route, and indeed next week, for example, there will
be a major resurfacing and reconstruction programme of the A20
route down in to Dover, and that will have a catastrophic effect
on how the town itself operates. Although it has not yet happened,
there have been various resident groups which have expressed absolute
dismay at what is actually likely to happen. Although we have
not got to the point of having people sitting down in the street,
it has come very close to that. From our point of view, I do not
know whether it is in order to actually perhaps offer an invitation
to you and your Committee to come down to Dover to see this sort
of thing actually in operation, but it is a real concern locally.
From a regeneration point of view, what it does do is give out
many wrong messages.
Chairman: This may not be the day to
suggest that direct action is a way forward!
Q428 Mr Scott: If there is any temptation
to go up on our roof, I would give it a miss!
Councillor Watkins: Continuing
the theme of the question you asked, Mr Scott, the issue of peripheral
roads or subsidiary roads is obviously of great concern because
there is local commuter traffic which comes through those roads
into the commercial centre of Dover. Any disruption to normal
traffic activity effectively kills the town centre dead and the
disruption on the A20 or perhaps on Operation Stack transfers
the freight traffic to the A2 and that affects the town of Deal
through to Sandwich, because we cannot get through on our roundabouts
and our commuter roads into the town centre. So there are some
very serious congestion issues on the A2. The last seven miles
of the A2 from Lydden through to Dover is not dual and must be
one of the only parts of the country where a major port is fed
by a single carriage track through to a port, and that is a travesty.
Chairman: You and Milford Haven, I think,
Councillor Watkins.
Mr Scott: And Lowestoft.
Q429 Chairman: And Lowestoft. It
is a very exclusive group!
Councillor Watkins: It is very
exclusive, but I would probably say to you there is more traffic
which comes through Dover than both of those, actually.
Q430 Mr Scott: Are the impacts becoming
worse? Is it becoming more and more profound now?
Councillor Watkins: It is becoming
worse because the projections on freight traffic are that they
will double over the next 20 years and if there are no ameliorating
methods of improvements to the road system through to Dover, then
consequently the bottlenecks which are occurring are going to
get worse, the local population and the local economy in general
will suffer and the pollution effects of this are such that any
sustainable development we want to encourage in and around our
areas will be retarded.
Q431 Mr Scott: Just a brief spin-off
question: are you having problems then in encouraging new business
to come into the area because they just simply cannot get their
customers through to buy from them?
Councillor Watkins: I would say
Dover is at a stage where it is probably going to go through major
regeneration growth. The issue we have is that the majority of
employment is port-related employment and the regeneration you
refer to needs to be diversified away from ports and logistical
activities, and those are the areas where these problems may actually
retard our opportunity.
Q432 Mr Hollobone: I would like to
ask about immigration controls, out-of-hours deliveries and emissions.
To what extent is the freight transport industry held up by bottlenecks
at the port caused by immigration checks?
Councillor Watkins: I would say
probably minimum.
Q433 Mr Hollobone: Is that an improvement
from where it has been?
Councillor Watkins: It is an improvement
because there is the juxtaposition of officials between Dover
and Calais now. The majority of immigration and entries are dealt
with at Calais rather than through Dover, so there has been a
major change.
Q434 Mr Hollobone: With regard to
out-of-hours deliveries and the noise nuisance caused to residents,
how should the balance between the needs of the freight industry
and the wishes of residents be struck when delivery time restrictions
are being set?
Mr Sheppard: This is always a
very contentious one, and again it is mainly to do with understanding
actually, bringing people together to understand what the issues
are. We will never get a full consensus that we want night deliveries,
but equally night deliveries do have many benefits in terms of
emissions, CO2 emissions and particulate emissions, because vehicles
are doing more to the gallon at night. This is where the FQPs
are beginning to work with local residents, with local boroughs,
and there is, dare I mention it, a very good case with Sainsbury's
where they have actually put in night deliveries to one store
in consultation with the Noise Abatement Society, the local residents
and the local boroughs.
Q435 Chairman: Do you routinely have
plans in place for night deliveries throughout the John Lewis
Group?
Mr Sheppard: We take them in where
we are allowed to. If there is planning permission, then obviously
we will do it. If there isn't, then we do not.
Q436 Mr Scott: Just on this point,
when you find a delivery coming in which is not your own van,
it is from an outside contractor, and they are not obeying the
law on when they should and should not be delivering, do you enforce
that?
Mr Sheppard: Yes.
Q437 Mr Hollobone: Does the Government
have a coherent approach to making decisions about night time
deliveries?
Mr Sheppard: No.
Q438 Mr Hollobone: Does the industry
have the certainty it needs in order to plan future operations?
Mr Sheppard: The answer is, no.
Q439 Mr Hollobone: So more could
be done to implement noise restrictions for night deliveries in
order that bans could be relaxed?
Mr Sheppard: Yes. There was a
study done, I think it was about four or five years ago, which
was actually put to the Deputy Prime Minister, which I was actively
involved in through the FTA on having a toolkit of what we should
be looking at to actually encourage night deliveries, and providing
the operator met certain criteria then we could do trials and
see how it went. If the noises were unacceptable then we would
stop. If they were acceptable, then obviously we would continue.
That never actually got off the starting blocks, unfortunately,
and it does need some leadership from central government because
we are faced with many situations in some areas where we have
a store, where we go for planning permission and get the restriction
put on us, yet the supermarket next door, which you have got to
go past our store to get to, has not. It is the inequality of
it and there is no logic to the way it is done. It just depends
on what the regime is at the time when you apply for planning
permission.
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