Newsletter
December 2006 Back
to Parish Council
A very merry Christmas to you all
and all the best for the New Year, from this first edition of the Counties HCV
newsletter. I hope you will all find this informative and useful when dealing
with the many and varied issues that Lorries create on our roads and also assist
you in understanding what we are trying to do in order tom alleviate this issue.
By way of introduction I am
Cambridgeshire County Council’s Heavy Commercial Vehicle Route Manager [HCVRM].
My remit is to develop a strategy to make the best and most effective use of the
county’s roads.
The aim of this newsletter is to
offer a guide to the issues and to outline the direction we plan to take to help
us achieve our objectives, working alongside communities like yours, as regards
Heavy Commercial Vehicles [HCVs]. You may find a brief note on my background
helpful. I have worked for a number of different companies, mainly in haulage,
whether as a driver or as a part of the back office. I entered local government
service as a trainee highways engineer and completed an HND in Civil
Engineering, joining Cambridgeshire County Council as the HCVRM in 2005.
The UK uses 450,000 HCVs to move
its goods and services. Since 1980 the number of HCVs on the road has reduced
although those HCVs have got larger. One reason is that the percentage of empty
running vehicles has been reduced from 60% to 29%. Of those, a quarter are
involved in the delivery of food and drink, the types of goods that the county
produces.
HCVs are getting cleaner; with the
advent of Euro engines for HCVs, there is less pollution emitted from 20 HCVs
than one badly tuned motorcar. Moreover, commercial vehicles are moving towards
clean emissions and eventually the only gas that should come out of an HCV’s
exhaust will be steam.
There are over 2200 HCV operating
centres located in Cambridgeshire, which means that there are approximately 9
operating centres within a few miles of every community. There are also over
17,000 vehicles registered at Cambridgeshire Operating Centres, which makes 8
vehicles per operating centre. As much as 85% of all HCV movements on our local
roads are local operators servicing the local business community.
The positive side of all these vehicles is that they
need a driver and that is usually a local person. This means local employment
paying wages to local people. It has been estimated that Cambridgeshire Hauliers
and associated industries employ over 20% of the working population of the
county. Moreover the single biggest user of HCVs in Cambridgeshire is
agriculture and with the spread of farms across the county, this is one reason
that we see many HCVs on our roads.
With such a large number of lorries
and operating centres in the county, it can be a daunting task to keep track of
them all. However, controls are necessary and Cambridgeshire County Council, as
the local Highways Authority, has a limited range of controls available to it
under current legislation. Most of these centres on the use of the Traffic
Regulation Order [TRO], under which we can prohibit the movement of a HCV by
reason of weight. However, introducing a TRO is not easy and they take a long
time to successfully implement. Moreover if the Council seeks the closure of a
road by a TRO, we are required to find a suitable alternative route for HCVs.
This new route cannot be one that is of a lower classification than the existing
route; nor can it be a route that simply diverts HCVs through a neighbouring
community or leads to more vehicles being diverted onto a route with a higher
accident rate. Therefore policy states that there must be over 30
through-movements on any particular road before that road can be considered for
closure to HCVs. In addition, because of the diverse locations of businesses
that use HCVs, we have to reflect the needs of local hauliers. Those affected by
proposals to close a road have to be consulted, and can find it difficult to
accept the environmental argument for a diversion.
If
we recognise that the traditional controls and structures mentioned above are
not sufficient to manage HCVs successfully in the future, we must look at
alternatives. We began this process by gathering the data necessary to
understand the problems. We then looked at what other local authorities have
done. We found that quite a lot of work has been done around the country -
although at a cost. Of those partner local authorities none has spent less than
£2 million and most a lot more; one authority has even estimated it’s spend
at over £100 million. This obviously diverts funds from other highways budgets
for such measures as pedestrian crossings and speed reduction schemes. We also
found that other authorities had invested in large amounts of time to tackle
problems - about 15 years on average. None would admit to their schemes being
totally successful.
Following
this research, we set up the Cambridgeshire Freight Quality Partnership [CFQP],
comprising of members of the Council and representatives from the Haulage
industry. The partnership meets regularly and looks at the problems that affect
the movement of freight and the impact on communities. This joint approach seeks
to address issues at a local level. The use and development of the CFQP,
alongside the traditional democratic processes that currently exist for the
Council to use, will give us a broader approach with improved likelihood of
success. Already the CFQP has come up with a number of aims and proposals, which
are detailed below.
1.The Route Map
We
started with the development of a mapping product to assist drivers in
travelling through the county. We decided that it would be useful to get our map
“in cab” rather than on paper and, following talks with the sat-nav
industry, we produced the Cambridgeshire County Council Route Mapping Service.
This on-line service offers HCV drivers the opportunity to find destinations by
post-code as well as locate every commercially useful feature in the county. We
felt that if we could help the driver find their destination, we could move them
away from inappropriate roads and help them plan their route in advance. Most of
you will have received a card with the website which is at:
http://map1.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/mapportal/mappage.asp?application=hgv
The
next step was encouraging the operators to use the map; through advertising,
mail shots and a general awareness campaign, we are taking a long-term approach
to an overall awareness of the map. However the Government have also made clear
that they expect future mapping information to be available on the web, so that
operators are already looking for this sort of advice at the moment. By
developing the route map further we can offer more sophisticated guidance on
journey planning to tackle the idea that the most direct route is the best. For
example, the best route for a haulier concerned about the price of fuel is one
that is cheap! And that kind of information is just what the route map plans
eventually to offer.
2. Lorrywatch
Not
met by enthusiasm by the haulage industry it must be said, but none the less
something which the council wanted to introduce as a way of dealing with
truckers who ignore our controls. Lorrywatch is about empowering those
communities that have a restriction in place to make reports to the council
through local co-ordinators. The council can then challenge the haulier about
why their truck was being driven through the restriction. If there was a
legitimate reason, that information can be passed back to the local community.
If there was no good reason then a prosecution can be mounted by the council
though its enforcement powers. This scheme is currently being trialled by
Cambridgeshire County Council’s Trading Standards Department, and further
information can be obtained from Ms Charlotte Wilson
Office of Environment And Community Services (OECS) Environment and Regulation
Trading Standards Programmes Box No: ET4000 Sackville House
Sackville Way Great Cambourne Cambridgeshire CB23 6HL
3. Lay-Bys & HCV Parking
Cambridgeshire
has fewer than 500 parking spaces for the more than 25,000 HCVs that visit the
county. Therefore parking of the HCV is a problem for the driver as well as for
those communities where the drivers park. We have conducted a survey of lay-bys
around the County to identify those that are big enough to accommodate HCVs and
their drivers. We are now looking to improve those lay-bys starting with the
largest and moving ahead with “a patch and fill” approach. We hope
eventually to look at a major program of improvements to all lay-bys. The
council is also talking to private suppliers of truck stop parking with a view
to identifying if further permanent truck parks can be built around the county,
which will encourage more HCVs to park in more appropriate locations.
4. Best Practice for Deliveries
Many
of the problems that occur between the community and the truck driver centre on
noise and obstruction. The CFQP plan to produce a best practice guide for
drivers and premises receiving deliveries. In the longer term, and as part of an
overall approach to shop front deliveries, the CFQP have already looked at
restricted delivery patterns, were the delivery has to be done within certain
time constraints.
5. Signing
As
many drivers do not have Sat Nav devices we are also looking at the County’s
road signs. We have started work on the routing advice offered to drivers at the
seven market towns around the county. Starting at St Ives and St. Neots, the
plan is to offer quality routing to the destinations that drivers need to find.
For example, St. Ives could involve better use of the A14 and St.Neots, the A1.
Once we have identified the appropriate routes, we can then produce the right
signs. We hope eventually to roll the program out across the county network.
6. Agreement
Over
the last 6 months I have produced a number of reports, which have been presented
to the district Area Joint Committees for transport issues [AJCs]. The AJCs have
all accepted the recommendations that we have made about the way forward, as
detailed in this newsletter. As a result, the above measures have become our
policy on these issues. This means that we can now concentrate our resources on
the necessary identified projects. It does mean that for some there will be more
delays in dealing with their HCV issues. Where I have been made aware of these
concerns I have visited the Parish concerned and spoken with them.
What next?
It
will take some time to successfully implement everything that we want to do.
However,
work has started and we have made great progress - particularly in the
development of the route map and the setting up of a partnership to allow
everyone involved in this issue to work together.
I
am sure that for many of you seeking to do the best for your communities, you
may at times feel that little progress is being made as HCVs continue to use
inappropriate roads in an inappropriate way. However, the progress made over the
last 18 months shows what can be achieved in the future.
Robert
Roweth