Burford Town Council defends HGV ban as hauliers say it is badly affecting business

The Windrush Valley Traffic Action Group (WiVTAG) represents 51 haulage and transport companies who are angered by the Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) decision to allow the ban to remain in place until at least February 2022.

Witney Plant Hire said the restriction "is having a huge negative impact on our business financially, being based in Witney with 80 per cent of our work within a 20-mile radius of our depot. All our deliveries north of Burford on some occasions are taking up to two hours longer and forcing our HGVs off good A roads on to smaller B roads.

"I cannot understand this decision to move HGVs off large A roads when they are in good condition and the bridge is structurally good, on to smaller roads and not to mention the green impact.”

READ ALSO: Lorry drivers stage drive past to protest at Burford HGV ban

Meanwhile the Landscape Centre (Witney) said: “The Burford weight ban costs us more in overheads - we are a small family run business! I’d of thought that the county council should be supporting local businesses?"

Paul Street from Chris Hayter, which has a fleet of 116 lorries, said they had a customer in Kingham they made several journeys to and from daily.

“Since the closures, the only viable option is to go via A4095 to the east of Witney, join the A44 to Chipping Norton and at the Greedy Goose turn left on to the A436 and to Kingham.

“The effect the restrictions has had is to increase both the time it takes to complete the journeys and has added in an additional 41,812km/year and as a result a significant increase in our costs both in wages and fuel and the added environmental impact of an additional (and unnecessary) extra 57 tonnes of CO2 per year.”

Witney Town has supported the aims of the Wivtag campaign since an interim report in June revealed there has been an 80 per cent increase in HGVs in Witney's Air Quality Management Area, Bridge Street and on West End..

Earlier this year they wrote to Oxfordshire County Council urging them to engage with all of those affected, including Burford Town Council, to explore alternative options.

READ ALSO: Witney Town Council supports campaign against Burford HGV ban

Burford Town Councillor – HGV Control John White responded that the council has tried to work with these groups to find a solution.

He said: "We tried very hard to involve the Road Haulage Association but they did not respond despite two meetings. They would not even give us the contact details of hauliers in our area so that we could warn and advise them of what was going to happen."

He said Burford Town Council had not underestimated the impact on haulage and local villages.

"Quite the reverse with one exception. We and OCC were well aware that if the HGVs did not go down Burford High Street, they would go somewhere else. That was the whole point in making the Traffic Regulation Order an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order for 18 months. An immense amount of work has been done by us and OCC to establish the facts and we are now in the middle of the third and last survey which we hope will tell the whole story.

"The one exception is farming. We are in a very rural region and should have realised that a special case should have been made for exempting farmers. We are now devising a scheme to help farmers which will be brought into force in the New Year if the ETRO is made permanent."

As to whether the permit scheme is fair, he said: "The permit scheme is more than fair, it is unbelievably generous! Most weight limits have no permit scheme at all (check the Barringtons!). Our ETRO required us to install a scheme to protect “local” businesses which everybody in their right minds thinks means businesses based in Burford.

"That didn’t stop hauliers from Plymouth to Aberdeen applying! So we decided to define the exemption zone as businesses with an operational base within a radius of 4.8 miles from Burford. If you can find a more tolerant permit scheme, I shall be interested to see it."