Error of judgment in East Kent
Page 28
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WITH hindsight, mistakes and errors of judgment had been made by the East Kent Road Car Co Ltd, in its relationship with Hoverlloyd Ltd over the operation of a special express coach service to the Pegwell Bay Hoverport.
So said M. A. Thorpe for the company when the hearing of an application by the Wallace Arnold Group subsidiary, Evan Evans Tours Ltd, completed its fourth day before the Metropolitan Traffic Commissioners in London.
Evan Evans was seeking a licence to operate a special service on behalf of Hoverlloyd between London and Pegwell Bay. The application was opposed by East Kent who already provide a service, National Travel (South East) Ltd, and Orange Luxury Coaches Ltd.
During the previous three days of the hearing, allegations were made that the development of the Hoverlloyd crossChannel hovercraft service had been damaged by the use of poor-standard coaches by East Kent. (CM October 24, November 14 and 21.) An important part of the cross-Channel traffic was the offer of an inter-capital service, London to ParisBrussels, and the UK road link compared very unfavourably with its continental counterparts.
Replying to allegations that East Kent had promised until the last minute to provide modern luxury coaches for the 1975 season, Mr Antony Carter, marketing manager of East Kent, said he had not known that the company were not to have an intake of new coaches in 1975 when he had negotiated with Hoverlloyd. The situation was aggravated by a serious shortage of spare parts which had reached crisis point early in March. He agreed that at that time he had said that East Kent could not provide Plaxton-bodied coaches at any price.
Although it had been realised all through the negotiations that Hoverlloyd were very interested in using better quality vehicles, the company had expressed a similar interest in previous years without it ever coming to anything.
No approach was made to National Travel for assistance when it was realised that Hoverlloyd's requirements could not be met.
Questioned by Sir Frank Marshall for Evan Evans, Mr Carter said East Kent was opposing Evan Evans because it was now in a position to fulfil the contract in a way that Hoverlloyd required.
Mr Thorpe said in six years of service there had been only three specific complaints made to East Kent by Hoverlloyd. In 1975, one quarter of the operations had been undertaken by Plaxton-bodied coaches. Of the 17 instances of breakdown, seven had been with this type of vehicle. In his submission the company had been particularly straightforward with a contractual party which in the business sense was more sophisticated and ruthless than East Kent.
The Commissioners adjourned the hearing until December 12.