Trading profits fell 34pc to €161m (£146m) on revenues down 16pc to €571m, with the Channel Tunnel operator scraping a net profit of €1.4m versus €34m last time.

Jacques Gounon, chairman and chief executive, said the figures demonstrated "resilience in the face of difficulties", with the fire on September 11, 2008, causing the tunnel to remain partially closed until February 9, 2009. The year ended with more chaos when Eurostar trains broke down in icy weather.

The fire closure caused particular headaches for Eurotunnel because it coincided with the period when its core trucking customers renew their annual contracts. Some hauliers switched to ferries, with truck shuttle volumes falling 39pc over the year in a cross-channel market down 20pc against 2007.

John Keefe, Eurotunnel's communications chief, said the company's share of the trucking market fell to just 24pc at the start of 2009 – though it had recovered to 32pc by the year end.

"We are targeting a return to 38pc by the end of this year," Mr Keefe said. "It's a long haul back because the ferry companies are putting on very competitive prices."

Eurotunnel is seeking €200m-€250m from its insurers for damage and business interruption caused by the fire. Aside from €10m already received, the latest figures include a €69m payment. Receipt of a further €59m due has been delayed, however, by a French court after France's SNCF and Eurostar made their own claims against Eurotunnel's insurers. Mr Gounon is confident that Eurotunnel will get the money.

The financial restructuring masterminded by Mr Gounon in 2007, which was followed up by further measures to reduce borrowings, has brought down Eurotunnel's debts from €9.4bn to €3.65bn today. Last year's interest bill fell by €62m to €195m.

Mr Gounon is exploring ways to exploit the company's €2.3bn tax losses in France and €2.68bn of trading losses and €1.43bn of capital allowances in the UK.

The dividend is held at 4 cents. The shares fell 4 cents to €7.66.

Source: Telegraph

Three illegal immigrants from Afghanistan were arrested by police after jumping out of a lorry in Semington – just yards away from Wiltshire Police’s divisional HQ.

A man and two boys were found on the A350 by the Semington Road roundabout after getting out of the back of a French lorry that was delivering to the Great Bear company in Portal Road, a distribution centre for Staverton firm Cereal Partners UK, on Tuesday.

Sergeant Melanie Rolph, of the Melksham Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: “They were rumbled when the lorry driver opened the back of the lorry and a pair of gloves fell out. He quickly closed it, so they slashed a hole in the side of the curtain and jumped out and ran.”

Five police cars were involved in the half-hour search along the Semington bypass for the three fugitives, who were discovered just before noon. The trio were arrested under suspicion of being illegal immigrants, taken to Melksham police station and later handed to UK Border Control.

A worker at Great Bear Distribution, who didn’t want to be named, said: “The driver of a Norbert Dentressangle lorry from France noticed three people leave the back of his lorry.”

He said there was another incident in early 2009 at the firm involving illegal immigrants being found in a lorry.

The two boys have since been placed in the care of Wiltshire Council’s social services department, which could have a legal duty to look after them until they are 18.

A Wiltshire Council spokesman said: “We have a responsibility to assess the ages of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children found in Wiltshire.

“Two young people have been taken into the care of Wiltshire Council while the situation is being investigated. We are liaising with the Department of Immigration and working with the UK Border Agency.” The man has applied for asylum and is on immigration bail until his case is heard.

Source: Wiltshire Times

Firefighters had to cut through the car's roof to free the driver

A car driver has had what firefighters described as a "remarkable" escape after his vehicle was crushed under a truck in a pile-up near York.

The 28-year-old suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries in the crash on the A64 late on Monday night.

He was trapped when a lorry shunted his car under a recovery truck. The 39-year-old lorry driver was arrested.

Fire service manager Trevor Lund said the injured man's car was "in effect demolished" in the incident.

"It's one of the most remarkable escape stories I have seen in 28 years," he said.

We had to physically lift the truck off the car and drag the car out

The incident happened as vehicles were queuing at temporary traffic lights outside the Highwayman Cafe near Stockton on the Forest.

The driver, who is from the York area, was eventually cut free from his wrecked VW Lupo after a two-hour rescue operation. He is being treated at York District Hospital.

"We had to physically lift the truck off the car and drag the car out from underneath using winches and cranes," said Mr Lund.

The A64 was closed for nine hours, causing disruption to morning rush-hour traffic, as police examined the scene.

Anyone who witnessed the collision is urged to contact North Yorkshire Police.

The driver of the German-registered lorry, who was arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving, remains in police custody, a force spokesman said.

Source: BBC NEWS

A lorry overturned spilling straw bales onto electricity cables in a village near Shrewsbury.

The incident resulted in the live cables ending up on the B4386 Montgomery Road near to the Cock Inn, Brockton, near Worthen, yesterday.

Fire crews from Minsterley were called at about 11.30am and were on standby while the road was closed by police and an electrical engineer called.

A spokesman for West Mercia Police said nobody was injured. He said: “A lot of straw came down over electrical cables and brought them down live on the road.

“The road was closed at the junction between the B4386 and the Binweston turn.”

The road reopened at about 1.30pm.

Source: shropshirestar

Thieves rammed a skip lorry through the wrought iron gates of a Mitcham merchant’s yard before using the stolen vehicle for a smash-and-grab raid on a Thornton Heath supermarket.

The truck was taken from Goat Road just after midnight on Monday morning and driven to Tesco in London Road, where it was used to rip a cash point from the shop front.

Police said the ATM was then loaded into a white van outside the store, where the truck was then abandoned.

Officers searching for four culprits have not revealed how much cash was taken during the raid, which happened at about 1.45am. However the van was discovered abandoned in Lancaster Avenue in Mitcham shortly after the theft and the ATM recovered from inside.

Lee Weston, owner of the stolen skip truck, said: “I was woken up at 3am by police at my front door asking if I knew where my truck was. I had no idea it had been taken and I still don’t know where it is now.

“The whole thing is so frustrating and I’m pretty angry about it, but what can you do?”

Police sealed off the merchant’s yard until 10.30am on Monday as officers investigated the scene.

Kevin Meehan, 42, director of Linney Fencing in Goat Road, claimed it was not the first time the yard had been targeted by criminals.

He said: “About three years ago one of our fork lift trucks was taken to smash through our premises and £2,000 or £3,000 worth of materials were loaded on to a truck. It just makes you think, what’s the world coming to?”

He added in 2003, robbers held staff at gun point on pay day, trying to steal their wages.

Anyone with information about Monday’s incident should contact Croydon's Burglary Squad on 020 8649 1336 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Three of the four people police are hunting were seen making off from the abandoned van, containing the cash point, running from Lancaster Avenue in the direction of Mitcham Common.

Source: This is Local London

NOT enough is being done to deal with potentially dangerous foreign lorries on UK roads, an influential body of MPs said yesterday.

Heavy-goods vehicles travelling from Europe cause one in ten lorry accidents in Britain despite making up just 3% of the lorries on the roads, the House of Commons Public Affairs Committee said in a report.

Chairman Edward Leigh gave his backing to a report which called for action to be taken to close the loophole which means British haulage firms pay tolls on the Continent but European drivers do not pay UK road tax.

He said: “The worst of these accidents are down to the poor mechanical condition of the foreign lorry, or driver fatigue brought on by driving for too long without a break.”

There have been several accidents in Wales involving European lorry drivers, including Portuguese Paulo Jorge Nogueira da Silva who was jailed for three years for causing the deaths of an entire family, the Stathams, from Llandudno.

David and Michelle Statham, and their four children Reece, 13, Jay, nine, Mason, 20 months, and Ellouise, 10 weeks, were killed on the M6 in October 2008.

During his trial the jury heard that it was possible that Da Silva, who was delivering fruit juice to Morrison’s supermarket, was using his laptop when he crashed into the back of the Statham’s Toyota Previa.

Head of road safety for the AA Andrew Howard said problems with foreign lorry drivers result from a combination of truckers doing all they can to evade the law and cultural differences.

Foreign drivers face additional problems because their steering wheel is on the left-hand side of their cabs. This leaves them with a blind spot for overtaking traffic on British roads passing on their right.

Mr Howard said: “We’ve always got to be a little bit careful with people living in glass houses throwing stones because, of course, we have signed up to all the various European directives on free trade and free markets.

“In some ways that is what has let them in and that was a conscious decision that was made at the time.”

The committee said it was “unacceptable” that Government safety organisation the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa) cannot properly inspect high-risk vehicles at ports before they enter Britain.

But MPs welcomed the fact that Vosa, a Department for Transport (DfT) agency, increased by more than 25% the number of dangerous vehicles and drivers it removed from the roads in recent years.

The report went on: “More needs to be done to address the significant risk to road safety posed by foreign commercial vehicles.

“They appear to contribute little in the way of revenue and pose a particular challenge in terms of enforcing regulations.”

Road Haulage Association manager for Wales Simon Higgins said safety standards were highest among British drivers and the rest of Europe needs to improve.

Mr Higgins said: “Their standards of maintenance are not as good as ours, because unfortunately they don’t have the same servicing requirements that we do over here.

“In this country the law says the vehicles have to be inspected every six weeks, but in foreign countries they don’t have those regulations.”

Mr Higgins said the UK’s tighter regime imposes additional costs on British firms, who must also pay the Eurovignette – a tax for operating on European roads.

No such charge exists here for foreign firms.

Source: Wales Online

Organized criminal gangs which force illegal migrants to work in poor conditions for a few pounds a day could be operating in Leicestershire.

UK Border Agency officials yesterday searched lorries for illegal immigrants at Leicester Forest East services, on the M1, as part of a national operation.

Officers said many of the illegal immigrants would end up virtual slaves, trapped into paying off the fee – which could be several thousand euros – for being smuggled into the country.

Many workers would be forced to work for a few pounds a day – and have much of that deducted by bosses and traffickers.

Phil Dyer, a senior manager from the agency's immigration team at Castle Donington, spoke during the operation at Leicester Forest East.

It was part of a nationwide crackdown at 27 sites across the country, codenamed Operation Mermaid.

He said: "This is the extreme end of things where people are being treated like modern-day slaves, working in poor and dangerous conditions for long days and coming out with very little money.

"It is exploitation at the highest point of the scale.

"We have recently prosecuted a firm in Derbyshire and we know it goes on elsewhere in the East Midlands."

He said the most unscrupulous employers charged workers to use the tools they needed, for accommodation and, in some cases, fined them for spending too long in the toilet.

He said: "These people then find themselves trapped in a debt bondage.

"They can't leave because they don't have the money, because they fear possible repercussions and they have no one to turn to."

Border agency officers used the operation to gather intelligence from drivers and catch up with haulage companies, which had been caught carrying illegal immigrants but not paid fines.

A number of drivers were detained.

Immigration minister Phil Woolas MP visited the Leicestershire operation.

He said it reminded haulage firms of their responsibilities, and the penalties.

He said: "It also serves to hammer home to would-be illegal migrants and organised smuggling gangs that we will catch them."

No stowaways were found yesterday, but last year 31 Leicestershire businesses were raided, resulting in penalties totalling £430,000.

Between last April and January this year, 76 illegal workers were arrested during 36 raids in Leicestershire.

Mr Dyer said: "Quite clearly, there's a duty on us to make sure we are removing illegal workers from employment in order that local workers get the opportunity to take these jobs."

Source: This is leicestershire

More than 400 lawn mowers were stolen from an articulated lorry parked in a lay-by on the A417 in Gloucestershire.

Police said the offenders forced their way into the rear of the vehicle and stole 12 pallets of 1,000 watt Gardenline electric lawn mowers.

It happened between 1000 GMT on Wednesday and 0600 GMT on Thursday next to the southbound carriageway, near the Cirencester exit.

Police are appealing for witnesses to the theft to come forward.

Source: BBC News

A WOMAN who cheated death when her car smashed into a central reservation is looking for the man who came to her rescue.

Gemah Lambert lost control of her black Vauxhall Corsa when it skidded on black ice on the M1 in the early hours of the morning.

But the 22-year-old amazingly escaped serious injury and walked away from the accident, even though the vehicle was a mangled mess after bouncing off the metal central reservation.

Shaken and in shock, Gemah managed to get the car over to the hard shoulder where she clambered out.

But help was on hand in the form of a lorry driver who had seen the accident and pulled over 100 yards ahead.

The Asda HGV driver took Gemah into his vehicle, calmed her down, rang her dad and the police and then gave her coffee and talked to her while officers arrived.

And now Gemah, of McNamara Road, Wallsend, is desperate to find the man who helped her – who she knows only as Peter – to thank him for his generosity and help.

Gemah, a dancer at Players bar in the Gate, Newcastle, had been driving home from Sheffield at around 3am on Wednesday, February 10, when her car struck the ice.

She said: “I was driving north when my car suddenly started swerving until suddenly I was facing backwards along the road, then it swerved again.

“In a split second, I knew I was going to hit the central reservation so I straightened my arms and prepared for the impact.

“It was frightening but it happened so quickly. I remember the car hitting the central reservation and eventually coming to a stop. I think I had my eyes closed when it actually hit.

“I panicked as the car was on the road but I managed to start it and get it across to the hard shoulder.

“I remember missing a lorry by a couple of inches and I saw it had pulled up ahead.

“I got out shaking and ran up to it, thinking I had hit him and I immediately started apologising. But the driver told me I had missed him. He could see I was in some state and he straight away started to try and calm me down.

“I tried to phone my dad but I couldn’t because I was so upset and in shock. So the driver took me into his lorry and phoned my dad for me and told him where we were. He then rang the police.

“I then heard him on the phone to his boss. I think he was getting in trouble for stopping and he was telling him he wasn’t leaving me on my own. He then went into a bag and got some sachets of coffee and made me a coffee with a flask of hot water.

“He sat with me until the police arrived and then left. I only know his name was Peter because it was on his Asda name tag. He went totally out of his way to help me and I really want to thank him.”

Gemah crashed just before the first turning from the A1 for Newton Aycliffe. She narrowly avoided hitting Peter’s lorry as they were side-by-side when she started to skid.

“The police saw the car and instantly said I was lucky to be alive – it was a mess,” added Gemah. “I feel really lucky. My dad gave me a huge hug when he saw the car. It could have been so much worse.

“I walked away with just whip lash. I remember the lorry driver at the time saying he couldn’t believe it when he saw the car door open and me get out – he thought I would be seriously injured.

“Also, I’m a dancer, so any injuries I would have got would have impacted significantly on my job.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw the car at the garage the next day. It was completely crumpled, I got a real shock. It was completely written off.

“I really want to find Peter to say thank you for his help. He really was lovely. I can remember he was about 40-50, with short, dark hair.”

Do you know who Peter is? If so call Sara Nichol on 0191 201 6027.

A representative of HGV insurance specialists Staveley Head commented: "This is very bad news for road hauliers and owner lorry drivers. In these hard times haulage firms are already under pressure and these thefts can only add to that."

"We hope the police are successful in catching those responsible. As always we are working closely with drivers and haulage firms across the UK to try to minimise the problems caused."

Staveley Head are based in Flintshire, North Wales. They have been in business for over 15 years and have built up a reputation for offering affordable, reliable insurance to lorry drivers and road haulage companies.
Using a panel of insurers allows them to find the most suitable and best priced cover for individual clients, while a quote can be obtained swiftly through their online quote system. Further details are available at www.staveleyhead.co.uk or the company can be contacted at their headquarters in Flint.

Source: PR-USA

RESIDENTS living alongside the A40 at Holtspur are bracing themselves for more noise, dust and vibration now that the Springfield Farm landfill site has been granted permission to increase lorry journeys by 90 per day.

It means that up to 710 lorries can go into or leave the site in Broad Lane every day.Bernard Tuner, of North Drive, who will be affected more than most, said he was 'disappointed but not surprised' at the decision.

"The law of England is such that the small man has no chance at all," he said.

Mr Turner added that tests for noise, vibration and dust carried out in his garden were done while the landfill site was not operating. It has been shut for more than a year, since potentially hazardous substances were found to have been dumped there before the current owners took over the site.

Christine Aldridge, also of North Drive, said: "I'm very disappointed. You don't notice the effect much in the winter, but when the summer comes and the windows are open, that's when we'll notice it."

Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC) had argued that an increase would be unfair on people living nearby.

But Inspector Alan Boyland upheld the appeal by Springfield Farm against BCC's refusal to allow lorry movements to increase by 90 to 470 per day for extraction and landfilling of waste.

An extra 240 will also be granted on 50 days in the year for the delivery of clay and for landfill engineering.

Mr Boyland ruled that traffic on the A40 would increase by no more than 1.5 per cent. He said that residents already suffer noise from the A40 and the M40 and that the increase would be 'less than perceptible'.

"While I sympathise with concerns of residents to some degree," he said, "I do not accept that the impact of the proposed scheme would be as overwhelming as some people have suggested."

Source: Buckinghamshire Advertiser