Response required ANOTHER dig at lorry drivers

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
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Go here http://www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/

Click on letters and then scroll down about 5 letters to :

Lorry parking
Newark and Sherwood District Council is putting up parking charges to recover £64,000 lost by people not using its carparks.

Why don’t they stop wagons from parking all over the place instead, especially at the side of, and behind, Homebase?

I’m sure if they chased all these vehicles back to the allocated wagon park they would get back a lot of the lost revenue. - WAGON WATCH, Balderton (Name and address supplied).

Any of you who feel clever enough to give a good response please do, i cant think of anything at the minute.

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Perhaps they can’t chase them back because everytime they get near them they all form a circle. :laughing:

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Just sent this:

From:
Conor Turton
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Dear Editor,

I recently read a comment from ‘Anonymous Coward’ regarding lorry parking in Newark.

Quote:
“Why don’t they stop wagons from parking all over the place instead, especially at the side of, and behind, Homebase?
I’m sure if they chased all these vehicles back to the allocated wagon park they would get back a lot of the lost revenue.”

To be quite frank, they can’t because the lorry park is full most nights. Has your reader actually been there to see for themselves? Not only that, it is also unsigned from the A1 so unless you know where it is, you’ll not find it.

In line with many other local authorities, the Council has followed the line of “we want your loads but we don’t want you here.” Basically that means that there are no adequate parking facilities for HGVs. Even though the amount of freight has doubled over the last 50 years and we are now travelling five times as far to deliver it, the number of truckstops has been drastically reduced by successive councils bowing to the anti-HGV fraternity who strangely rely on HGVs to bring everything they consume but don’t want to see them anywhere at any time. Quite how that works I’m unsure.

We cannot “just drive down the road to the next place,” partly because the next place is also jam packed full of lorries too. Most of us parking up for the night end up doing it at the side of the road with no hot food available, nowhere to get a wash or a shower or even a toilet to use. How would you feel having to put up with that at the end of up to a 15 hour working day trying to get a nights sleep with no food, no toilet, dirty from the day before worrying about your load being stolen and the cab being rocked by every passing car? Do you think we honestly like it? No. Given the chance of parking on some industrial estate/retail park/layby or parking up in a secure truckstop with a hot shower and warm food, I know which I’d choose even though it usually costs £15+ per night when I’m lucky enough to find a place.

We are governed by strictly monitored driving hours and we HAVE to stop once those hours are up. Unfortunately for the reader, Newark is at the side of the A1 and successive councils have sought to remove the truckstops that used to exist due to complaints from people like your reader who submitted the letter. This has resulted in the status quo. If anything, the reader should be complaining to the Council for not supplying adequate facilities.

Compare that to the continent where there are a plethora of well equipped truckstops and the parking situation such as Newark simply doesn’t exist because the needed facilities are there.

Yours truly,

Conor Turton - a Class 1 HGV driver for 14 years.

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Looks good Conor if it gets printed ill let ya know.

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Good letter there Conor, im glad somebody can write em!

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Spot-on Conor, I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

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Great reply conner, but these people will never understand as far as they’re concerned it should all go by rail. They live with some rose tinted image of days gone by where all freight went by rail.

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Hats off to you boy.That was superb.

It’ll be interesting to see if that gets published.

Ken.

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nice one coner very well put :wink:

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Many thanks one and all. I’ve had plenty of practice writing to the local paper after being born and living in a seaside resort where people come to retire, resulting in a retired “incomers” population larger than the locals, and oppose/complain about anything which might remotely possibly change the town from what it was in the 1960’s when they used to come on holiday whilst scratching their heads and wondering why the town is in its last death throes and why it’s shut from September to May.

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E-Mailed the following along with my Name and Address :laughing: :laughing:

Sir

I read with interest the article from your Reader calling him / her self “Wagon Watch”, obviously a Nimby (Not in my back yard) resident of Newark,

Your Reader obviously is unaware of the problems HGV Drivers face in finding parking spaces, although HGV’s do park in the A1 Lay-By’s, it is actually an offence under the road traffic act to park a vehicle without lights in a lay-by unless there is a barrier seperating the lay by from the main carriageway, if Nimby takes time to drive up and down the A1 between Retford Roundabout and Gonerby Moor Roundabout, they will actually find out that there are very few parking places where a driver can park without using their lights resulting in flat batteries, unlike Nimby’s car, HGV’s are legally required to have many more lights fitted along the length of the vehicle.

Some companies do not repay parking charges to the driver, therefore if Nimby was asked by their employer to take a company vehicle into London would Nimby be happy to pay the Congestion Charge and parking fees knowing full well they cannot reclaim them?

HGV Drivers are the lowest of the low in the eyes of most people, yet, without them there would be no goods delivered to the shops to fill Nimby’s Larder on a weekend, yet because we are forced to work in conditions worse than found in foreign country’s, Nimby wants us to be moved on? When we are forced to take our Legally required rest periods, we rarely find facilities where showers or toilets are available, how many 24 hr public toilets are there in Newark where there are no weight or height restrictions in place? If we are parking behind or beside Homebase, it is not because we want to, but because we have to because the local Council are not providing a large enough facility to cater for the number of trucks passing through. Newark is in effect a Junction with the A1 and A17, both of which are very busy roads, maybe next time Nimby see’s a Truck parked up, they may be better off talking to the driver and finding out why the vehicle is parked there instead of writing anonymously to the Newark Advertiser.

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A good couple of responese there.
Should rattle a few nimby know all - know nothing brigade cages

If they get printed

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Sock it to em Davey!

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I must agree that there are two very good letter writers here …and i hope you send them off, I for one would like to see the replies.
I would have also added (as a frightener) that the truckers union is collating a list of towns who do not wish to accept HGV`s and will therefore be blacklisted from all deliveries, we will of course let you know shortly if your town is on the list.
Now that addition may put the fear of christ up them.

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Brilliant letters, lets see if they print them.

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well done both of you i would like to be able to write letters like that but im articlute enough plus my spelling would let me down.
good for you lets hope they get printed.

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jessicas dad:
well done both of you i would like to be able to write letters like that but im articlute enough plus my spelling would let me down.
good for you lets hope they get printed.

Your punctuation leaves a lot to be desired as well Jessicas dad :unamused: :wink: :wink: , but we can all, usually, understand what you’ve written. I’m sure that newspaper editors get plenty of letters with spelling which leaves a bit to be desired. They probably run a spell-checker on everything they publish, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

(There’s a spell checker which works on Internet Explorer pages, like the “Post a reply” page here. Download and install it, I used it for quite some, before migrating to Firefox and then Mozilla, which both have a built in Spell-checker.)

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Well done guys both letters have been printed and are in prime position in the paper today, no doubt there will be replies i will let you know when there are .

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jammymutt:
Well done guys both letters have been printed and are in prime position in the paper today, no doubt there will be replies i will let you know when there are .

newarkadvertiser.co.uk/letters/letters.htm

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Captured

Driven to despair

Your reader (Lorry Parking, News Views, December 2) is obviously unaware of the problems HGV Drivers face in finding parking spaces.Although HGVs do park in the A1 laybys, it is actually an offence to park a vehicle without lights in a layby unless there is a barrier separating it from the main carriageway.If Wagon Watch takes time to drive up and down the A1 between Retford roundabout and Gonerby Moor roundabout, they will find out that there are very few parking places where a driver can park without using their lights, resulting in flat batteries.Unlike your correspondent’s car, HGVs are legally required to have many more lights fitted along the length of the vehicle.Some companies do not repay parking charges to the driver.If your reader was asked by their employer to take a company vehicle into London, would they be happy to pay the congestion charge and parking fees, knowing they cannot reclaim them?HGV drivers are the lowest of the low in the eyes of most people, yet, without them there would be no goods delivered to the shops.When we are forced to take our legally required rest periods, we rarely find facilities where showers or toilets are available.How many 24-hour public toilets are there in Newark where there are no weight or height restrictions in place? If we are parking behind or beside Homebase, it is not because we want to, but because we have to because the local council are not providing a large enough facility to cater for the number of trucks passing through. Newark is a junction with the A1 and A17, both of which are very busy roads. - David Driver, Gateshead.

Baseless

I read a comment (Lorry Parking, News Views, December 2) regarding lorry parking in Newark.
“Why don’t they stop wagons from parking all over the place instead, especially at the side of, and behind, Homebase?

“I’m sure if they chased all these vehicles back to the allocated wagon park they would get back a lot of the lost revenue.”

They can’t because the lorrypark is full most nights.

It is also unsigned from the A1 so unless you know where it is, you’ll not find it.

In line with many other local authorities, the council has followed the line of: “We want your loads but we don’t want you here.”

Even though the amount of freight has doubled over the last 50 years and we are now travelling five times as far to deliver it, the number of truck stops has been drastically reduced by successive councils bowing to the anti-HGV fraternity who strangely rely on HGVs to bring everything they consume but don’t want to see them.

We cannot “just drive down the road to the next place,” partly because the next place is also full of lorries too.

Most of us parking for the night are at the side of the road with no hot food, nowhere to wash and not even a toilet to use.

How would you feel having to put up with that at the end of up to a 15 hour working day, while you are also worrying about your load being stolen and the cab being rocked by every passing car?

Newark is at the side of the A1 and successive councils have sought to remove the truckstops that used to exist, due to complaints from people like your reader who submitted the letter. - Conor xxxxxx.

Let’s see what next week brings. :smiley: