Transport jobs and road safety will be jeopardised by new rules allowing foreign lorries to spend more time on Kent roads, a haulage boss has warned.

Peter Carroll, owner of Seymour Transport, based in New Hythe, near Maidstone, claims that any relaxation of the so-called cabotage regulations, now under consideration in Brussels, could hit local trucking firms and drive many businesses to the wall. "I fear for the future of the entire UK industry," he says.

Continental hauliers are pressing Brussels to allow them to do more journeys while in the UK. Hauliers like Mr Carroll fear that they would use less highly taxed diesel to undercut UK rates.

Mr Carroll, who is also Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidstone and the Weald and spearheaded a recent truckers’ protest to London, said: "Kent hauliers are not against competition for European transport operators. We are against the fact that we don’t have a level playing field.

"Continental hauliers are flooding into the UK using cheaper diesel all bought abroad. They are undercutting the rates of reputable Kent and UK transport companies."

He added: "When foreign trucks work in the UK they typically bring in all their fuel in massive tanks so they pay no fuel duty in the UK. They pay no employment taxes here and no road tax.

"All they do is wear out our roads, put car drivers on roads like the M20 at risk and destroy British jobs. This is the economics of the mad house." He says that there should be a common rate of commercial diesel fuel duty across the EU.

The Freight Transport Association, based in Tunbridge Wells, shares Mr Carroll’s concerns. Spokesman Geoff Dossetter said: "Any Continental operator could come into the UK on a Monday morning, full of cheap goods, do all sorts of work in the UK, pay no fuel duty, no road taxes, nothing, leg it back to France and not pay a penny into the UK exchequer. They will cut prices and undermine the UK transport industry. How daft is that?"

Mr Carroll also claims that many European trucks are not as safe as UK-based vehicles - several have been involved in incidents with Kent motorists - and some of their drivers are at the wheel for longer than the stipulated hours. "The standard of driving on the M20 by many of our competitors is simply diabolical," he said.

He called on the authorities to make more checks on the safety of foreign trucks when they enter the UK particularly at Dover and Folkestone.