Tribunal Deletes Trailer Lengths from Normal User
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L-1 A DECISION by the Northern
Licensing Authority, Mr. J. A. T. Hanlon, in which he restricted the length of trailers specified on a licence granted to R.A.H. Transporters Ltd., by providing that one should not exceed a length of 36 ft., and that others should not exceed 35 ft. in length, was changed by the Transport Tribunal sitting in London on Monday.
Mr. Ian Robey, for R.A.H. Transporters, pointed out that the application had been for the regranting of an A licence without modification. The appeal was directed mainly to the Authority's restriction on the trailers. He submitted that the only restriction an Authority could impose was one as to unladen weight. • .
"I do not question the Authority's power to distinguish by description or otherwise the vehicles he specifies. I say that the manner of specification he adopted in this case was incorrect, having regard to the evidence he had before him," he continued.
Mr. Robey said that the Authority had before him evidence that since the early 1950s long-length materials had been carried over bolsters on rigid vehicles and that since 1957, when the first longlength trailer was purchased, such materials had been carried on long-length articulated vehicles. By 1961-62 the proportion of this work had reached 17 per cent, or something in excess of s£10,000 per annum.
The matter had been complicated and bedevilled as to precisely what " steel " meant in the normal user. The objectors gave evidence of very substantial availability, but there was evidence that at the time in question there had been a recession in the steel industry and that all hauliers were suffering.
Mr. Robey submitted that a declaration of intention to carry steel must embody a declaration to carry steel of any length, in that the greater must always include the lesser. If his submission was wrong about this, then he felt he should he grateful to the Authority for ignoring a very substantial departure from normal user on the part of the appellants in the past.
It was understood that "type", in connection with an application, meant rigid, tipping, tanker vehicles, and so on. If definitions were to be split in the way suggested by the Authority, matters were going to be "very complicated ". The Authority was entitled to ask for information about vehicle lengths, but in this case he had not done so in the past, and it appeared that it had not been his consistent practice to do so as a matter of regularity at all. Why did not the Authority ask for this information when the licence was granted five years ago?
Mr. Robey continued: "This is a matter which has exercised the minds of the Authority and those of us practising before him for about 18 months. It is not just this argument of whether 'steel' includes 'long steel ', nor a question of whether the description of a vehicle should include the length. It is how far the operation of outfits of this sort is proper having regard to the provisions of the proviso in Regulation 6 of the Construction and Use Regulations ".
Mr. G. D. Squibb, the president of the Tribunal interjected: "It is not so much a question of law but a question of policy. The Authbrity was entitled to consider the matter, and if it was not stated on the application that the vehicles were for the carriage of indivisible loads of exceptional length, he was entitled to ferret about and discover it ".
Mr. Robey contended that the introduction of Regulation 6 was a red herring drawn into the case. The real matter on which the Tribunal's guidance was sought was whether " steel " included "all steel ", and secondly, the basic question of whether the Authority could arbitrarily say as he did to the appellants: "No more; only one ".
If he had acted on the evidence of availability shown by the objectors, why not say that there was no need for long vehicles at all? If the evidence of the applicant was accepted as to the extent of operation; if the requirements of the company's customers, as reflected in the evidence, was accepted, then there was justification for considerably more than the one long outfit that was granted.
Mr. J. R. C. Samuel-Gibbon, for Siddle C. Cook Ltd., Sunter Brothers Ltd., and A. Stevens (Haulage) Ltd. (respondents) argued that the evidence showed quite clearly that there was no need for the authorizing of four vehicles to carry the long-length traffic. It would be wrong for the Authority to specify all the vehicles as long-length trailers without evidence. The arguments put forward were merely a matter of wording and terminology.
Before announcing its decision, the Tribunal said that the Authority's decision seemed to indicate that five trailers had been granted. He had no power to grant more than that which had been applied for.
The view the Tribunal had formed upon the circumstances of the case was that it would not be right to put the appellant in any different position from that which it was in Under its existing licence.
Not Right The specification of weights of trailers in itself had some limiting effect upon the number which could be used for carrying long-length material and the Tribunal did not think it would be right to specify, as the Authority had done, that there should be only one trailer which could be used for that purpose. It was a matter for the appellant running its fleet to decide what were the best vehicles for the company to have to carry the trade which was available at any given time, provided that it kept within the weights specified on the licence.
The proper grant, the Tribunal considered, was for a licence in exactly the same terms as the old one, restricting the applicant in weight only.