Important Contract-licence Pointer C AN C AN a man who also has a
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canal business engage with a road haulier for a contract vehicle to do the transport for his sand and gravel business?
In the North-Western Licensing Area it was recently held that the contract clause of the Road and Rail Traffic Act excludes such a man, and the Authority declined to re-issue the licence.
Mr. 0. T. Smith, a carrier with two vehicles, on an A licence, was thus left, after two years' working, with the contract vehicle on his hands, and Richard Abel and Sons, Ltd., of Manchester. was left without transport for its sand and gravel business.
Mr. J. A. Dunkerley applied for a B licence to enable Mr. Smith to continue the sand and gravel carrying, but contended that the contract had been legal. The clause "not being a business for the carriage of goods," he said, did not apply when a business, other
than that for the carriage of goods, was carried on as well. In this case Abel . and Sons, Ltd., which carried goods by canal, had also, inter alia, a sand and gravel business. It was not for "a business for the carriage of goods" that this company wanted the road haulage, and it was not the intention of the Act to prevent the sand and gravel business being done by contract.
Sir William Hart said the company would at least have to show that the sand and gravel carrying was a separate business, but he took the view that the contract licence would not be continued. Mr, G. H. P. Beames, for the railway companies, said he could not subscribe to the interpretation put upon the section of the Act by Mr. Dunkerley. It was perfectly clear, he said, that the section must apply to anybody having a haulage business.
A B licence was granted.