1.
SV INTERIOR Loading 16 crates into milk floats at Express Dairy depot in Hillingdon. (2 SHOTS)
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2.
SV ZOOM INTO CU Express Dairy slogan.
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3.
SV Milk floats leave depot.
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SV Milkman inside moving float.
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5.
SV Back of float with full milk crates.
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6.
SV Milk float pulls up and milkman brings milk to door ZOOM IN TO milk on step. 9 (2 SHOTS)
1.20

7.
SV Milk float pulls away.
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Two EEC Council regulation permit the existence of milk marketing boards. The Milk Marketing Board in the UK is a producer organisation which has the exclusive right to buy all the milk from producers in the areas covered and to "pool" returns from the market and to equalise the prices paid to producers, irrespective of the use for which the milk brought from them is intended. The exclusive right to buy milk is related to the raw milk satisfying certain minimum requirements.




Initials JS/1710



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: A fight is underway in the United Kingdom and at the headquarters of the European Economic Community in Brussels, Belgium, to keep Britain's Milk marketing Board - and with it the daily delivery of milk to family front doors that has been a feature of British life for nearly 50 years.

SYNOPSIS: At the depot of the Express Dairy in Hillingdon, North London, the day begins early as milk is loaded onto the milkmen's floats - ready for early morning delivery, Its always been taken for granted, but Common Market regulation could mean it will be a thing of the past. The Milk Marketing board has been at the centre of an EEC controversy ever since the United Kingdom joined five years ago. The EEC anted to scrap the system of having boards as the sole buyers of milk from farms.

Throughout England and Wales on Wednesday (25 October) more than 50,000 dairy farmers were being asked to vote in a postal referendum, the result of which will decide the future of the Board.

The referendum vote, required under Common Market rules, comes at the start of the final stage in the fight to keep the Board. Voting papers urged the milk producers to use their votes to ensure the continuation of the centralised marketing scheme that has been operating for 45 years. After a tough fight when Britain first joined, the Community agreed that the Board should remain - if there is a substantial majority in favour.

Both the National Farmers' Union and dairy firms are backing the Board and the referendum result, due tin mid-November is expected to endorse its continued existence.