Plea for More Bus Shelters
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From our Parliamentary Correspondent
ASKING that the British Transport Commission should provide shelters for bus passengers wherever they were required, Mr. George Strauss (Labour, Vauxhall) said last week that the situation in London was "ridiculous." London Transport Executive would pay only half of the £.150 needed to erect these shelters, saying that the local authorities must provide the other 50 per cent.
This they were refusing to do, Mr. Strauss told the Minister of Transport in the Commons. "No action is likely to be taken by anyone unless the Minister or some outside authority ensures that the impasse is somehow resolved, and that the money can be provided from one source or another to set up these essential bus shelters," he added.
London Transport Executive could not be treated differently from other bus operators, replied Mr. Marples. Like many other bus operators the B.T.C. often provided or helped to provide shelters for passengers, and he did not think it would be right for him to direct the Commission to do so.
S.O.S.
THE Council of Shipping has asked Mr. Ernest Marples. the Minister of Transport, to impose restrictions on road and rail so that coastal shipping can carry more goods. In the Commons last week. the Minister was once again urged by the Opposition to speed up the co-ordination of coastal shipping and inland transport.
He said that this matter was bound up with the. current examination of the statutory provisions for the protection and co-ordination of coastal shipping with inland transport—an answer which prompted Mr. George Strauss to point out that the problem had been before the Ministry in one form or another for many years past.
PENSIONERS' FARES
A SUGGESTION that all local authori4Th ties who run public transport should be allowed to give free travel to old age pensioners was turned down by Mr. Marples. If this concession were given it would bear very hardly on pensioners in places where the service was not provided by the local authorities, he told Mr. Hector Hughes (Lab., Aberdeen North) in the Commons.
SAFETY BELTS nO not buy a safety seat belt for your
vehicle unless it bears the B.S.I. kite mark. That was the advice given last week by the Minister of Transport, who added that he was very disturbed at the way in which some bodies were trying to push "certain commodities" which did not measure up to the standards.