Advert was in the wrong paper
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West Mailingbased Greaves Surveying & Engineering has lost its licence for advertis ing an application in the wrong newspaper.
The firm had been called before the South Eastern & Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner Christopher Heaps following complaints that its licence application for a new operating centre in Kiln Barn Road, Ditton, had not been properly advertised.
The IC said it had been advertised in the Kent Messenger Extra, a free publication. The application had been granted in June, as there had been no valid objections. But enquiries to the Kent Messenger office revealed that though the Kent Messenger Extra was delivered in part of Kiln Barn Road, it was not delivered at the far end.
Local residents main
tained that there was a "natural break" between the collection of houses forming a hamlet near to the operating centre and the village of Bitten. They said that the Kent Messenger Extra had never been delivered to houses in the hamlet.
For the firm, Paul Carless argued that the Kent Messenger Extra met the requirement of circulating in the locality if it was available in the village shop in Ditton, just over a mile away. But he was unable to produce any evidence that it was available.
Revoking the licence, the IC said there was no definition of "locality" in the Act. Having consulted the Oxford Dictionary, he concluded that he should interpret the word "locality" to refer to an area which was identifiably separate from other areas in the vicinity, perhaps by geographical features or by less obvious factors. 'Just as Chelsea and Hackney can be identified as different localities although part of London, I find that the hamlet is a different locality from the village of Ditton, from which it is separated by one and a quarter miles and the obvious physical feature of a railway bridge and a railway embankment," he added.
"I find that the Kent Messenger Extra is not delivered in and does not circulate in the hamlet."
The IC granted the firm interim authority to continue using the site, subject to a number of environmental conditions, pending the submission of a fresh licence application. He invited them to advertise any fresh application in the Kent Messenger.