Commissioners the Only Safeguard
Page 62
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EPRESENTENIG Mr. Frank A. IX Stark, of Tetney, who applied before the East Midland Traffic Commissioners for licences to operate two vehicles from Cleethorpes, Mr. T. J. Lewis declared; " A time is rapidly coming when one of the main purposes of the Road Traffic Act will he brought into operation."
Addressing the chairman (Mr. J. H. Stirk), he continued; "You will be the only safeguard the public has in seeing that services are adequate, satisfacfactory and economical, and running in accordance with the legislation, because the big companies have to such a large extent bought up smaller businesses that it is rapidly becoming a mono Poly."
The application was a rehearing on the instructions of the Minister of Tra.esport, following an objection to the granting of the licences by the Lincolnshire Road Car Co.
Mr. Lewis said that at one time there was a good deal of misapprehension regarding the conditions attached to licences. Mr. Stark received alicence. one of the conditions being that the maximum number of vehicles to be operated on one day or one excursion must be one. Right up to last year he ran two vehicles, without objection and in good faith, and he would have gone on indefinitely had it not been for the Road Car company buying up all the other operators. That concern made inquiries and objected.
Mr. Stark was under the impression that he could run one vehicle on each excursion. All he asked for now was to legalize the position.
Mr. G. H. Iles, for the Road Car company, said th-,..t his concern had spent a great deal of money in the area, and had bought up most of the operators. He considered it unfair for a man who had been operating irregularly to be able to legalize that position.
Mr. Lewis replied that the question which the Commissioners had to ask themselves was whether or not the acquisition of those operators was in the public interest.
Granting the application, the chairman announced that Mr. Stark could operate two vehicles on one day, but only one vehicle on any one excursion on one day, this meeting an objection of the L.N.E. Railway Co.