Scrap the Policy and Update the Law

BLACKPOOL, England, April 22 --

- Budget Comment From: Tony Wilson, Chairman of Klarius Group

Editors note: Tony Wilson is Chairman of The Klarius Group, the UK's largest exhaust and catalytic converter manufacturer with a turnover in excess of EUR100m. He purchased the company from the American owners in August 2007 and returned it to profitability within eighteen months. After investing GBP1.2million in Lean Manufacturing and a new R&D centre in the UK, the company is now growing quickly. The company produces over 2million exhausts every year and employs approximately 1000 people across 4 sites in the UK, with 400 employees in mainland Europe. All Klarius products are sold into the automotive aftermarket. 30% of our sales are exported.

Making money available to stimulate the purchase of new cars in the UK is a false economy; it is a waste of public money, and contrary to recent positive coverage, did not benefit the German car industry when it was implemented there.

The UK has many hundreds of thousands of people employed in the automotive aftermarket industry. From roadside recovery, auto factors and distributors, to repair shops and fitting stations we have a major employment sector designated to the support of older vehicles.

Falsely stimulating new sales and removing perfectly serviceable older vehicles will have a massive and damaging effect on employment and in the case of auto mechanics in an area where the government is promoting apprenticeships and attempting to recruit young people to the sector.

The damaging environmental impact of manufacturing new and disposing of old vehicles is substantially greater than maintaining the older vehicle correctly and allowing a natural evolution of the UK car park over a 5 year period.

The UK is one of the only European countries that has NO design or manufacture approval standards for Exhaust or catalytic converter systems. A recent independent blind test of catalytic converters sold in the UK, including both type-approved and non-type-approved, showed that 20% of the non-approved product served no purpose whatsoever and contained NONE of the precious metal coatings necessary to make them function.

If tomorrow morning in the UK all cars aged 3 years + changed their catalytic converters and exhausts for a correctly functioning and approved product, tomorrow afternoon the UK would have reduced its auto emissions output by approx 20%. The MOT system in the UK has emission parameters which are so broad they render the test a farce so this makes no difference.

Fuel consumption can increase by as much as 10% with a badly designed product and the same is true of tyres and suspension products. If the government's focus is green then why not implement legislation which ensures older vehicles are correctly maintained and functioning at maximum efficiency?

On a common sense note, the average person who owns a 10 year old vehicle with a value of a few hundred pounds is not about to rush out and spend an additional GBP10,000 on a new vehicle. What you will do is stimulate a trade in older vehicles and remove perfectly acceptable transport from the system which could benefit vulnerable groups of society.

    
    - A minimum of 82% of vehicles sold in the UK are imported,
      stimulating sales will do very little to bolster our manufacturing
      industry, and will do a great deal to assist our competitors.

    - Very few of the component parts on the imported vehicles are
      manufactured in the UK. Stimulating sales will only strengthen our
      European companies.

In summary, sector support to the automotive industry won't work and will have a net negative impact on job losses. I and other responsible manufacturers do not need financial packages to grow our UK businesses and employ more people, but we do need common sense policies and a little more than environmental lip service.

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Tony Wilson, Chairman Klarius Group, Klarius head office: Tel +44(0)1253-361004; Contact Details: For editorial enquiries contact: Roland Renshaw, Marketing Director, Europe. DMA Europa Ltd. 2nd Floor, Snuff Mill Warehouse, Park Lane, Bewdley, Worcestershire, DY12 2EL. Tel: +44(0)1299-405454. Fax: +44(0)1299-403092. Email: roland@dmaeuropa.com