DafT shafts Railfreight with longer lorries

This from Rubber Duck...

Ah, breaker one nine this here’s Mike 'Bandit' Penning, Minister for Roads, on a 10-17.

Have all my trucker good buddies got their ears on?

Standby by for a 10-33!

We've got those longer rigs I been promising you. Sure wish we'd had these Widowmakers when I was driving a truck!

Those pesky rail freight folks have been tellin’ me it’s gonna be a knockin’ a two thirds of their business outta the front door.

But I ain't got no ears for railroad folk, I leave that to wooly bear Cruella de Villiers - that's some neat handle.

So you better haul your sorry arse outa my way, I'm going to put the hammer down and set the pedal to me metal!

Mercy snakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy… 1800 trucks in all, all a rollin' across the UK.

What's that you say? My good buddy Pushbike King has changed his handle to Squashed Cyclist?

Oh! Can someone call a meat wagon...

DfT roads team drives freight off rail

This from Rose Hill...

After months of uncertainty, DFT has finally announced that the long running Freight Facilities Grant scheme has been axed.

Over the years, this scheme has helped to co-fund many rail freight developments, removing numerous lorries from the roads, reducing carbon, helping small businesses to grow and creating employment.

Sadly, these no longer appear to be Government priorities.

The budget for FFG was around £8m pa so this is hardly a major saving for a Department who has just announced £560m in the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, and is stumping up over a third of the £1.4bn Regional Growth Fund.

Perhaps the fact that rail freight grants are now part of Roads Directorate has some bearing on the matter.

Aviation news....

This from the Civil Aviation Authority...

CAA STATISTICS show last year’s fall in passenger numbers was biggest since the Second World War

• UK airports handled 17 million (7.3 per cent) fewer passengers in 2009 than in 2008, the largest annual decline for sixty-five years.
• It is the first time numbers have fallen consecutively for two years, reducing passenger numbers to levels not seen since 2004.
• Traffic declined the most in the first quarter of 2009, with the rate of decline easing as the year progressed.

UK airports handled 218 million passengers during the 2009 calendar year according to figures published today by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), a fall of 7.3 percent (17 million) on 2008, the biggest decline in passenger numbers at UK airports since records began.

Yet another nail in the coffin for Heathrow's third runway?