Removers and Hauliers Fail to Agree on Normal User
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riA DIFFERENCE of opinion on licensing between furniture removers and hauliers is made apparent by Mr. E. J. White, of White's Removers and Transport, Ltd., Birmingham, in the official organ of the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers.
He says thaf it is the declared policy of the Road Haulage Association, to which the N.A.F.W.R. are' affiliated, to secure the amendment of the licensing laws to prevent a closer definition of normal user. If the R.H.A. had their way, it would be still easier for an A-licensee to infiltrate into the removal business when his general traffic declined.
" The recent Transport Tribunal decisions which have been a blow to the ambitions of R.H.A. have given great satisfaction to those of our members whose sole traffic is household furniture removals," Mr. White says. The thousand N.A.F.W.R. members holding A licences had no intention of entering the haulage industry, and demanded that hauliers, numbered in thousands, should not be allowed to switch at will to removals.
This trend was slight, but regular. Most businesses had expanded, but longestablished removers had seldom found evidence to justify an application for an additional vehicle. The extra traffic had been absorbed by A-licensees who had increased their operations outside their normal user, and by buyers of vehicles with special A licences. The N.A.F.W.R.
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would prefer a closer definition of normal user, or the grant of a new type of carrier's licence—perhaps a special traffics licence.
Under their agreement with the R.H.A., the N.A.F..W.R. must not take indc
pendent action on purely Transport matters. Mr. White says that the N.A.F.W.R. should tell the R.H.A. that they dissociate themselves from R.H.A. policy on normal user. He urges leaders of the removers to state their own policy with the same vigour as the R.H.A. [Mr. White is a past president of the Association and has made a special study of licensing matters.]