skip petition

SKIP PERMITS PETITION

This post to the site is where you can leave a comment in order to sign up to our petition to the government and local authorities of the UK to get things sorted regarding skip permits, lights and interpretations of the Road Traffic Act 1980. The more of you that sign, the louder our voice will be.
The inspiration for this petition is this letter we got from Chris at East Lancs Skip Hire in late December. We’re publishing it in February’s edition, but here it is:
“Dear Mark,
As you may be aware this is not a new issue. Back in the eighties, the late Mr John Field, the founder of our company, ran the “Skip and Tip Owners Association” giving a lot of free advice as well as defending the occasional court case.
Looking at the “Highway Act” and the ”Table for Charges”, they use phrases like “the person making the application” and “the person requiring the permit” .This in my opinion is the customer, builder or householder not the skip operator. They are trying to make themselves a very easy life and make us unpaid tax collectors.
As for the amount of charge in our area, the charge varies from zero to £22.50 which is a wide variation and at £22.50 is excessive. A more reasonable amount would be say a £1.00 if a charge at all is to be made .After all they are only allowed to charge for “considering the matter” and covering any legitimate expenses .Only 1% of people are willing to get a permit and pay exorbitant fees as they consider the charge another stealth tax. But 100% would get permits if they were no charge or a reasonable charge of say a £1.00.
Regarding the matter of lighting and coning, to say the “owner” is liable is unreasonable and impossible to work as in our case we have 1200 skips .How could we go round and check them every night? We are currently in a legal dispute with Lancashire County Council which may have to go to the High Court for Judicial Review. We are also in the process of responding to a Department Of Transport consultation on the “Draft Regulations for Local Authority Permit Schemes”. Our solicitor would like to know if other skip operators agree with our opinions.
Regards
Christopher Peano, Managing Director
East Lancs Skip Hire Ltd”
..and this is what I am saying to Chris in the mag…
“The Skip says: Thank you for this letter Christopher – (if anyone has read this and wants their voice heard in this response to the Department Of Transport consultation on the “Draft Regulations for Local Authority Permit Schemes”, please send them into The Skip ASAP at the usual address. We’ll pass them on to Christopher and publish your opinions) – I couldn’t agree with you more, it really does amaze me how a simple act can be interpreted so differently across the country. As I think I said in a previous issue, skip permit charges are really a tax on the poor (especially people who don’t have enough private property to place skips on).
It’s about time government and local authorities – who bleat on endlessly about the environment and recycling – got a consensus that skip permit charges are making skips prohibitively expensive and therefore encouraging flytipping. The whole lights issue makes me laugh as well. It’s hopelessly out of date and just plain stupid to expect all skips to be lighted and checked every day. The Act implies this is all about road safety, but cars don’t have to have lights on when they’re parked at night do they? As long as the skip has reflective strips on it, how is it more dangerous on the road than a car? So, here’s an idea: we’re going to use our website to set up a PETITION. Just go to www.theskip.net and search for “petition”. You can then read what we are petitioning for (single permit prices, no lights requirements, clarity over hirer responsibilities etc.) and then LEAVE A COMMENT (it’s dead easy to do). In your comment, your name and company name will be seen as a signature to the petition – even better would be to leave your tales of council/Road Traffic Act woe for all to see. This petition can then be used by Chris’ solicitor and we’ll update you as we get any news.”
So, if you have any experiences with your local authority and their interpretations of the Act and you want to share them with everyone else, just click on the “Comments” link at the bottom right of this post.