What's New

According to a leading trade union, the Government is planning a technical consultation on continuing the current relaxation on driving hours from Monday 4 October until Sunday 23 January.

Downstream User Import Notifications (DUINs) must be done by 27 October 2021.

The UK Government and the EU have been at odds over the Northern Ireland Protocol for most of this year with the Government’s latest move being to delay the previously agreed implementation date for some of the new border controls.

Introducing the plan for the continuing fight against the coronavirus (see Winter plan for managing Covid), the Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that the Government might have to move to Plan B if virus cases rise significantly in the coming months.

A Tesco lorry recently caused huge damage to a railway bridge in Plymouth, forcing the railway line that connects Cornwall and Plymouth with the rest of the country to close and causing misery for thousands of travellers.

We reported recently that parts of the Coronavirus Act 2020 were expected to be repealed as the Government prepared to set out its latest plan for dealing with Covid-19 (see Government outlines next steps in its Covid response).

A multi-agency fortnight of action is taking place along the M4 and M5 with a National Highways heavy goods vehicle (HGV) being used to check for illegal activity as the initiative aims to reduce the number of incidents on the motorways and to highlight the risks of dangerous driving.

The shortage of drivers has been making the headlines for several months with a wide range of companies and organisations pressing the Government to take action. It has now announced plans to create an extra 50,000 lorry and bus driving tests with changes to tests to come into force as soon as possible.

Measures from the Coronavirus Act 2020 are expected to be repealed as the Government sets out its plans for dealing with the pandemic during the autumn and winter months.

According to campaigning group Transport & Environment (T&E), testing in Barcelona and Madrid has revealed that nearly a third of trucks exceed the EU’s legal emission limits.