We had a very successful and productive meeting with Mr Chris Poles, personal assistant to Mr Phillip Whitehead MEP in the European Parliament and Mr Jean-Paul Delneufcourt, legislative officer in charge of establishing legislation on vehicle type-approval, who reports to Dr Reinhard Schulte-Braucks, Head of Automotive Industry Unit, Directorate General Enterprise and Industry in Brussels.

At this present time, there appears to be no specific European legislation in Europe which prescribes how a caravan or trailer jacking device should perform and that specific locations point should be available at the sides of the vehicles. However EN and ISO standards covering certain aspects of the construction of hydraulic and mechanical jacks are available at European level, but they appear to be insufficient with regard to their application to a specific type of trailer. Mr Delneufcourt was astonished to hear that those standards did not mention how customers should use a jack and which particular precautions should be taken to avoid accidents. He acknowledged that this appears to be a serious loop hole. A more suitable approach exists in the Australian standards. From the technical point of view, Mr Delneufcourt agreed that suitable secure fixing points, located so that the consumer does not have to go under the caravan or trailer and suitable specific lifting devices would be the best way forward towards the health and safety of the consumers. Our information will be passed onto the relevant associations who are concerned with this type of development in new standards or regulations and they will look at it and decide how to proceed for the future.