National Lorry Week 2016, with its focus on ‘The Next Generation’ was an unprecedented success with a huge array of events taking place across the UK.
This year’s events followed on from a successful Parliamentary reception at the House of Commons on 14 September, which saw an impressive 28 MPs attend to show their support for the industry. Transport Minister John Hayes promised he would be “much more radical” in building the status of road haulage as a key part of the economy, and we look forward to working with the minister on this.
During National Lorry Week itself, the UK saw more than 30 separate events, fun days, and school and college workshops.
Scotland alone had an event every day during the week, kicking off at Falkirk FC with a football match and concluding at M&D’s theme park in Motherwell, - over 500 children attended throughout the week, including 120 college students and 165 schoolchildren at an event in Aberdeen alone.
RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said: “This year’s National Lorry Week has proved that there is a growing buzz around logistics, and that younger people are starting to see haulage as an industry in which they can build a career.”
We were especially pleased to see how “The Next Generation” theme was reflected so strongly at the events with schoolchildren and young adults participating and enjoying it all!
The event proved to be a big hit on social media too - our Twitter followers topped the 10,000 mark which is an incredible achievement – we’d like to take this opportunity to say a massive thanks to all our followers.
Richard Burnett went on to say: “National Lorry Week is a celebration of all things to do with the trucking industry, and last week’s events have shown what makes our industry one of the best ones to work in. I would like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to all companies, member and non-member alike that took part or associated themselves with this year’s events; I would also like to say a big thanks to RHA staff for creating a second bigger and better National Lorry Week.”