Press release

Animal feed delivery drivers’ hours relaxed

This temporary relaxation of enforcement applies immediately and will run until 23.59 on 17 December.

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

The Government has brought in a temporary and limited emergency relaxation in driver hour regulations to deliver feed supplies to livestock farms, to make sure essential deliveries of animal feed get through during the current poor winter weather conditions.

This temporary relaxation of enforcement applies immediately and will run until 23.59 on 17 December. It applies only to those drivers involved in the distribution of raw materials to feed mills and prepared feed to livestock farms located in Great Britain and will mean:

  • Replacement of the EU daily driving limit of 9 hours with one of 10 hours;
  • Reduction of the daily rest requirements from 11 hours to 9 hours;
  • Lifting the weekly (56 hours) and fortnightly driving limits (90 hours); and
  • Postponing the weekly rest requirement until 23.59 Friday 17 December, at which stage a driver has to take a normal weekly rest of 45 hours.

Notwithstanding the postponement of the weekly rest requirement above, a driver must take a minimum rest of 24 hours beginning no later than the end of the eleventh day since the end of his last weekly rest period.

Regularly-updated advice and further updates on what to do during the cold weather can be found on the Defra website.

Published 3 December 2010