Following a successful outing at the Lib Dem party conference last week, the Freight Transport Association (FTA) has been 'talking transport' with influential MPs at Labour's event in Manchester this week.
More face-to-face meetings with the likes of MPs such as Geraint Davies, Nic Dakin, and Transport Select Committee members Lilian Greenwood and Kelvin Hopkins, presented fresh opportunities to underline the need for investment in the UK's ailing transport infrastructure and to gauge the new-look opposition party's level of support for the logistics sector.
Michael Webb, FTA's Public Affairs Manager, said:
"Both in our meetings with MPs and at our Transport Hub events, which FTA has been project managing, the air of excited uncertainty following the Labour leadership race has been palpable. It will be a while before we see what Ed Miliband has in store for his party, and what his new-look team has in mind for transport, but we have been encouraged by the acceptance among all the main players we have met that transport is not just a peripheral issue to be ignored.
"We were particularly pleased to see former transport minister Paul Clark at the Transport Hub reception last night, and grateful to Louise Ellman, Chair of the Transport Select Committee, for chairing FTA's own fringe event about how to extract the greatest benefits from the smallest outlay."