TRIBUNAL ALLOW S M.A.T. APPEAL
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N appeal by M.A.T. Transport Ltd., London, E.C.1, against a decision of the Metropolitan deputy . Licensing Authority, has been allowed by the Transport Tribunal. • In June the deputy Authority refused to allow M.A.T. Transport to add an articulated vehicle to its B licence and also to restrict the use of another vehicle already on B licence.
President of the Tribunal, Mr, G. D. Squibb, said: "We shall allow this appeal, but will put our reasons in writing." • Mr. Jackson Lipkin, for M.A.T. Transport, said the company had two B licences covering 20 vehicles. The appeal concerned three aspects—import and export, the carriage of assembled cars, and international shipping and forwarding, including full documentation.
This was a company busily engaged in the very valuable business of import and export and arranging documentation, said Mr. Lipkin. It built special trailers and transport equipment costing thousands of pounds for customers. But the firm found itself hard pressed to meet customer requirements because of considerable expansion in the car industry.
MAT. Transport's Continental iferry service department eased its difficulty by borrowing a transporter from the firm's car transport section, continued Mr. Lipkin. The car transport section, however, required the vehicle for its own use and hold ups and delays at the railhead ensued.
" So we ask for the vehicle to he restricted to the carrying of motor cars and for another vehicle for the Continental fern service." said Mr. Lipkin. For the Transport Holding Co. (British Road Services), who objected to the additional vehicle, Mr. R. M. Yorke described the situation as a " department squabble" which could be settled by a one-line memorandum from the managing director.
" What my friend is saying is 'We have a vehicle which Continental service keeps pinching off our other department. Would you please restrict its use so that they cannot do it' , said Mr. Yorke.
He commented: " The managing director has only to say this vehicle must be used only by the Continental car department. But in some curious way it seems the appellants are not capable of running their own business. They ask you to put on this restriction so that the departmental heads cannot squabble over a vehicle.
"We do not object to the vehicle being restricted," continued Mr. Yorke. "But as regards the application for the additional vehicle, B.R.S. are willing to do the work for MAT. Transport and have 21 tractors to do it. And B.R.S. have never missed a boat through their own fault." he added.
Four Granted in Swansea: After the heads of several companies had spoken of the need for extra lorries in the area the South Wales Licensing Authority in Swansea last week granted Williams Bros., of Cross Hands, Catmarthenshire, a B licence for four additional vehicles, to operate within 50 miles' radhis of Cross Hands Post Office and to carry excavation materials, coal, lime to farms,
quarry materials and silica stones. Mr. Andrew Williams, director of Williams Bros., said that at the moment his firm did not have enough lorries to meet the demands of a new open-cast coal site at a quarry which had opened in the district,