Fierce opposition to contract renewal
Page 29
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ECHOES of the Mendip tipper operators' L" "strike" on July 14 (Bastille Day) last year reverberated at Bristol last week when the renewal of Contract A licences was fiercely contested by 12 private objectors. A decision was reserved.
Stoke St. Michael Transport Co. Ltd., of Stoke St. Michael, sought to renew the contract for two vehicles with John Wainwright and Co. Ltd., of Shepton Mallet, and four vehicles with Mendip Stone and Concrete Co. Ltd., both previously issued to P. N. Massey and L. Bonfield. (The previous hearing on February 24 was adjourned.) Mr. I. Jenkins, for the applicant, said the objectors were RHA members "to a man"; his clients were not, and he believed they would not have been put in this position had they been members. The central issue, he continued, was a quarrel between members of the Mendip Tipper Group and Wainwright. It was a "spoiling operation" by the objectors who sought higher rates for quarry work. His clients accepted 5 per cent deduction by Wainwright for prompt account settlement and believed this was a sound commercial bargain. The objectors, he urged, were not entitled to seek to impose conditions on that contract.
When Mr. B. P. Hatton, a traveller for Wainwright, supported the renewal he was unable to answer many questions put to him by Mr. A. Duckett, for the objectors, and by the Licensing Authority, Mr. J. R. C. Samuel-Gibbon. The contract terms were not his responsibility; he did not know the history of the 5 per cent deduction; he could not say how rates paid to contract operators compared with charges made by Wainwright when the company's own transport was used; he did not know how many contracts had been suspended, and he did not know whether his firm's rates were "economic".
Mr. P. Y. Massey, director of the applicant company, was criticized by the LA for failing to produce recent figures; those available were a year old. Mr. Massey said the business was paying; he thought the earnings of a Ford Trader 7-tonner, loaded to its legal maximum, were about Is. 4d. per mile. The LA: "I have worked out the figures and on 54,000 miles running they show an average for one year of 14.8d. per mile, less 5 per cent." The rate for Hobbs Quarry work, he added, was nearly 50 per cent more—"a staggering difference". Mr. Massey said that at Mendip Stone Co. he could negotiate rates.
The LA asked Mr. Massey: "Before you accept rates you surely want to know if you are running yourself into bankruptcy?" Mr. Massey agreed he had no detailed knowledge of operating costs; as regards carrying over 9 tons on the back axle of afour-wheeler, Mr. Massey said that "thousands of others do it". The LA said that was one of many aspects that worried him.
To suggestions by Mr. Duckett that two trips a day from Shepton Mallet to Odiham, a total of 310 miles, was too much for a day's work, Massey replied: "I've got to admit I've done it and your tipper operators do it as well." The LA suggested to Mr. Massey that the temptation to overload vehicles and work excessive hours "amounted almost to compulsion". "It has", he replied. "That's why I'm worried", said the LA.
Mr. G. A. Cullen, of Stoke St. Michael, said he operated nine vehicles, including one on contract with Wainwright. He had started legal proceedings to recover the 5 per cent deductions made.
A director of A. J. Parsons and Sons Ltd., Mr. L. Parsons, said he was chosen to negotiate with Wainwright by the tipper group. Mr. J. Luff, Wainwright's managing director, had said that if the 5 per cent deduction were not desired the alternative was commercial settlement after three to five months. Mr. Parsons said he had checked rates paid to many destinations and they varied between 11÷d. and Is. 14-d. a mile.
Mr. Duckett complained that Wainwright had repeatedly sent unsuitable witnesses to traffic courts. An automatic grant of a licence under S,174 of the Act could be revoked immediately under 5.178, he suggested, because of the persistent charging of rates so low as to damage the interests of other hauliers.
Mr. Jenkins said that allegations that an RHA spokesman had said of the application that "they will never get it granted unless the tipper operators' interim rates schedule is applied" were most improper. The LA agreed: "It would not be true", he said.
Mr. Samuel-Gibbon said that he had sympathy with all the parties involved. All were trying to paddle their own canoes, but not necessarily in accord with the licensing system. He would not be influenced by the fact that the applicants were not RHA members.