"Essential" Road Freight?

[furnessvale]

The Road Haulage Association have launched their election campaign with various demands including a 15p reduction in diesel duty for "essential users" i.e. in their minds HGVs.

https://www.rha.uk.net/news/press-r...he-heart-of-transport-policy-making-urges-rha

On fuel duty which is still the highest in Europe, he said: “An essential user rebate of around 15 pence per litre to bring the UK into line with Germany would reduce operating costs and make British firms more attractive in the domestic and international markets.”

Every day, dozens of HGVs carrying stone from the Peak District quarries pass through my village in direct competition with freight trains carrying the same product to the same final destinations.

In what way can those HGVs be considered "essential"?

 

[DarloRich]

In what way can those HGVs be considered "essential"?

They cant and the article you quote doesn't suggest, in particular, that they are. Are you honestly unable to imagine why some HGV movements might be considered critical?

Every day, dozens of HGVs carrying stone from the Peak District quarries pass through my village in direct competition with freight trains carrying the same product to the same final destinations.

That is great if you are delivering a train load of stone to Beltchley. Send a train. How do you propose to get one wagon load of aggregate from Buxton to a building site at, say, Alfreton?

 

[Lucan]

How do you propose to get one wagon load of aggregate from Buxton to a building site at, say, Alfreton?

Road takes bulk load between depots too. The lorry delivering to your building site is highly unlikely to have come from the quarry. Same with groceries for example, which mostly come via massive road-oriented depots. The huge Morrison's depot by the M5 at Bridgwater for example; it has the railway along its other side, but no rail link.

 

[PeterC]

Road takes bulk load between depots too. The lorry delivering to your building site is highly unlikely to have come from the quarry. Same with groceries for example, which mostly come via massive road-oriented depots. The huge Morrison's depot by the M5 at Bridgwater for example; it has the railway along its other side, but no rail link.

It always "feels" wrong that supermarket depots are only road connected but the inbound flows come from a variety of sources and are unlikely to be suitable for rail. (At least not without re-inventing wagonload).

Trunk hauling containers by road from the ports is another matter.

 

[furnessvale]

They cant and the article you quote doesn't suggest, in particular, that they are. Are you honestly unable to imagine why some HGV movements might be considered critical?

That is great if you are delivering a train load of stone to Beltchley. Send a train. How do you propose to get one wagon load of aggregate from Buxton to a building site at, say, Alfreton?

And where have I suggested that SOME HGV movements should NOT be considered critical? I am of the opinion that, for the forseeable future, the majority of freight will move by road. That is no reason to give ALL road freight a financial advantage to enable them to abstract further traffic from rail. A so called "essential user" fuel duty discount for ALL HGVs has been a core RHA policy for some years.

Alfreton is not the best example from my point of view, being in an area not well served by rail, but shall we say Bury. To get from the quarries to Bury, HGVs can, and do, pass at least three rail served depots which bring stone from the same quarries AND that stone is distributed by road from those depots to locations such as Bury.

 

[furnessvale]

It always "feels" wrong that supermarket depots are only road connected but the inbound flows come from a variety of sources and are unlikely to be suitable for rail. (At least not without re-inventing wagonload).

Trunk hauling containers by road from the ports is another matter.

Tesco and Stobart are demonstrating that for some flows rail is possible. The daily trains between Daventry and Scotland, Wales and East London all backload with goods from manufacturers to the central distribution depot.