Submitted by hannah on Sun, 2012-02-12 19:24

A fairer deal for UK hauliers

 

Plans for a lorry road user charging scheme has been announced by Roads Minister Mike Penning.

 

Each year there are around 1.5 million trips to the UK by foreign-registered lorries, but none of them pays to use our roads, leaving UK businesses and taxpayers to foot the bill.

 

The proposed scheme will levy a time-based charge of around up to £10 a day for lorries of 12 tonnes or over using any road in the UK.

 

By law, the scheme cannot discriminate between UK-registered vehicles and vehicles from elsewhere in the EU, so this charge will apply to all lorries. However, for the vast majority of UK hauliers, this will not mean an increase in costs because the Government proposes to compensate them for the charge – the most likely compensation measure being a reduction in Vehicle Excise Duty for UK-registered vehicles.