VETOING PRIVATE BUS ENTERPRISE.
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An Association of Bus Proprietors Contests the Right of a Bus-owning Municipality to Refuse Licences for Private Services.
A T the January meeting of the Cardiff City Council Mr. J. T. Richards, solicitor to the Motor Omnibus Proprietors' Association, attended and made representations against a decision of the watch committee, which declined to grant licences to Messrs. Thomas White and Co., motorbus proprietors, of Barry, to run 18 buses on a circular route by way of Cardiff, Penartb, Sully, Cadoxton, Barry, Barry Hill, Barry Deck, Wenvoe, Culverhouse Cross, Ely and Cardiff. Three of the local authorities in whose areas the service will run have granted the requisite sanction, but the Cardiff Watch Committee recently declined to authorize its inauguration.
Mr. Richards said that the suggested service would confer a benefit on thousands of residents in outlying areas who required transport facilities to and from Cardiff. The council is only concerned with two small sections of the route coming within the Cardiff area, i.e., to Penarth Road Tollgate and Culverhoase Cross. These two sections, said Mr. Richards, had for 20 years been served by private buses and had become "declared bus routes." He contended that the only factor the council had to consider was the public demand.
Mr. Richards thought that in view of Its leaning towards the corporation's own undertaking, the watch committee was not an impartial body to consider the application, and he asked the council to overrule its decision. After the December meeting of the watch committee the solicitor was informed that the decision was arrived at as a result of the chief constable's report deprecating the
use of additional heavy vehicles on the Cardiff streets.
The issue, he said, however, was one of wider importance and directly concerned the survival of private and municipal enterprises. Mr. Richards indicated that members of the council's bus committee sat on the watch committee, and expressed the view that municipal trading authorities were not disposed to encourage private bus enterprise either in their own areas or over outside routes linking up with them.
The chairman of the tramways committee, Alderman Sydney Jenkins, said the watch committee was a trusted, unbiased judicial body and must be sup
ported. The private owners had the full right to appeal to the Ministry of Transport if dissatisfied with its decisions. The policy of expanding the bus service of the council, he pointed out, should not be thwarted by criticisms levelled by the council's members against the tramways committee.
The chief constable said that after mature consideration, and having regard to the application purely from the question of street congestion, he had advised that permission be not given to Messrs. White to run 18 additional buses through St. Mary Street and the centre of the city. Not only would the buses have to run over the same route as the
tramcars) but they must stop to pick up and set down passengers, and thus traffic would be held up. He would advise a similar refusal had he to report on granting additional licences to the council to run more buses through the city.
A long discussion ensued, several members speaking in support of reversing the watch committee's decision.
A motion that the licences applied for be granted was defeated by 26 votes to 16, and as Mr. Richards declined to abide by an amendment that the decision of the committee be referred back for consideration, the Ministry of Transport will now be appealed to to hold an inquiry into the whole matter.