Industry News

DHL expands Unilever warehousing capacity

March 14, 2012 Peter Steele

DHL Supply Chain has opened its expanded capacity warehouse for long-term customer Unilever, marking the end of a 21 month project. The Cannock, Staffordshire, centre has the capacity to house 100,000 pallets and will handle all of Unilever’s homecare and ambient food lines for the UK and Ireland – including brands such as Persil, Marmite […]

Labour warns on longer semi-trailer cyclist danger

March 13, 2012

Labour is calling on the government to “reverse its reckless decision” to give the go-ahead for a ten-year trial of longer semi-trailers. In a statement outlining the opposition’s current road transport policy, shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle MP says ministers must “stop being dogmatic” and examine evidence from the Department for Transport (DfT) that the […]

Operators Favour 15.65m

March 13, 2012

Early indications suggest that the larger 15.65m longer semi-trailer size is proving a more popular option than its 14.6m counterpart in the Department for Transport’s (DfT) ten-year trial of the new lengths, announced last December. According to the DfT, “two or three” companies have returned their allowance of the smaller 14.6m design and MT has […]

APN and TfL hold ‘productive’ pre-Olympics briefing

March 9, 2012 Peter Steele

Transport for London (TfL) has held an Olympic briefing with members of the Association of Pallet Networks (APN) to build ties ahead of this summer’s Games. Despite APN representing eight networks consisting of more than 650 hauliers, chairman Paul Sanders has previously expressed frustration at a lack of engagement with Olympic organisers, which the event […]

Save Truckpol campaign

February 23, 2012 Motor Transport

Major operators are throwing their weight behind a campaign to save TruckPol, led by MT’s sister magazine Commercial Motor, the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association. Since the withdrawal of its government grant last April, the freight crime intelligence unit has managed to survive on funding from the private sector, including haulage firms […]

Police launch URTU fraud investigation

February 23, 2012 Motor Transport

Seven men, including URTU general secretary Bob Monks, have been released on bail after a series of co-ordinated arrests as part of an investigation into alleged fraud offences relating to LGV licences and Driver CPC. The operation, conducted by Greater Manchester Police’s Volume Fraud unit in conjunction with the Driving Standards Agency (DSA), also saw […]

Plan now for Olympics

February 23, 2012 Motor Transport

This summer it won’t be business as usual for the road transport industry. The world’s biggest sporting event is hitting UK shores on 27 July and bringing with it a host of traffic restrictions and road closures that will result in changes to delivery patterns and the way you normally operate. If you don’t think […]

Operators urged to cut carbon

February 23, 2012 Motor Transport

The FTA has urged operators to join its Logistics Carbon Reduction Scheme (LCRS) to strengthen its efforts to avoid government action over commercial vehicle emissions. Evidence from the scheme, which published its second annual report this week, will be submitted to the DfT’s Freight Review later this year. The FTA hopes the evidence will convince […]

Cabotage deal in the offing

February 23, 2012 Motor Transport

UK and Irish governments are set to meet next month to discuss cabotage regulations after intense lobbying from Irish hauliers. For years hauliers in both countries have delivered trailers to ports, where they were collected for inward delivery by a driver working in that country. This practice falls foul of cabotage rules introduced in 2010 […]

Buyers’ guides now on commercialmotor.com

February 23, 2012 Motor Transport

“Challenging.” That seems to the euphemistic description for the tough economic times in which we find ourselves. Capital budgets are being cut to the bone – and then trimmed some more. That’s where our series of free buyers’ guides on Commercialmotor.com will come in handy. We aim to cut a route through the purchasing jungle […]