By Pauline Latham OBE MP - 18th January 2011
The European Commission (EC) has recently developed a report that aims to restrict the height of haulage trailers across the European Union to four metres.
You may be thinking that this is a rather trivial issue to get worked up over.
But considering we are discussing the EU, this decision will have huge ramifications to our economy, our transport infrastructure and our environment.
There is officially no limit to the height of trailers in the UK, although our road
infrastructure requires the height of trailers not to exceed 4.9 meters.
Britain is one of just five of the 25 countries within the EU to not limit our trailers to four meters.
This EC proposal seeks to ensure that all lorries across the EU are the same.
By reducing the height of our trailers, the EC will force our haulage companies to phase out and replace their current trailers over 4 meters.
This will mean each haulage company will need more lorries to transport an equivalent load.
It is estimated this will cost the haulage industry £347m extra.
This will increase the cost of transporting goods, meaning the price of goods in shops will also increase.
It is estimated that this EC proposal will increase the number of lorries on the road by approximately five per cent.
This will mean more traffic jams snarling the road up for you and I.
More wear and tear on our roads will cause damage to your car and incur additional spending on repair that the government simply cannot afford.
Finally, the increased number of lorries on the road will inevitably have a huge impact of Britain's CO2 emissions.
If we work on 2008 figures, the five per cent increase in the number of lorries on our roads would increase CO2 emissions from articulated lorries by 5.3 per cent from 0.5 million tonnes to 0.9 million tonnes.
Britain's haulage industry is the backbone of our economy. I hope to be able to convince the EC to stop this proposal in its tracks before it has the opportunity to force our haulage industry off the road.
Pauline Latham OBE was elected as Conservative MP for Mid Derbyshire in 2010. A former Mayor of Derby, she currently sits on the House of Commons international development committee.
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