Working regs raise costs

The quarrying and aggregates industry will endure an additional cost of £300m a year when the road transport sector's exemption from the Working Time Directive expires on 22 March 2005, the Quarry Products Association (QPA) has warned.

The directive will restrict lorry drivers to a 48-hour week, with a maximum 10-hour night work limit. The main impact of the directive is going to be cost and will affect everyone in the supply chain.

QPA economist Jerry McLaughlin said: "A working party carried out an analysis for us based on how many drivers there are, what they do every day and what they won't be able to do with the new restrictions. The £300m annual cost to our sector is a ballpark figure and is the minimum amount - I anticipate it will be a lot more and it will be passed on to customers including contractors.

"The problem in our industry is that it's very much haulage-based and we often have drivers on duty for 60 hours or more a week. A big part of that time consists of waiting - it's not all driving - but the directive covers all the time you're on duty, not just the driving part," he said.

Aggregate companies will therefore have to find ways of using their vehicles more efficiently, perhaps introducing measures to avoid wasting time when delivering or picking up from sites, suggested McLaughlin.

"In order to manage we'll need more drivers to carry out the work, but the problem is that there is a national shortage of hauliers and it isn't just our industry that uses hauliers," he said.

"So in addition to trying to deal with the implications of the WTD for our business, we'll also be competing for a pool of drivers with other sectors and trying to find drivers from the diminishing number still available."

McLaughlin doubts that many people are aware of the implications of the directive, particularly in the construction industry. "Virtually everything on a construction site arrives by lorry so the implications for construction as a whole are significant. I can't imagine what the total cost to the construction industry will be, but if it's £300m for us, then it's got to be billions for construction," said McLaughlin.

The QPA is in talks with the Department for Transport and will also be making the Treasury aware of the cost implications because "we don't want the Aggregates Levy increasing on top of this".