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Office 0-licence base allowed
Page 27
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A DECISION that a haulier's office could not be given as an operating base in an 0-licence application was overturned by the Transport Tribunal last week.
The Tribunal allowed the appeal of Owen House Ltd, of City Road, London, against a refusal by the Metropolitan deputy Licensing Authority, Mr J. L. Boyer, to grant it a licence for two vehicles with four to be acquired.
This comes hard on the heels (CM February 27) of a Tribunal ruling that a licence could •be granted even if the operating base is a private dwelling-house with no facilities for keeping vehicles.
Mr Arni Feder, for Owen House, told the court that the company's operating base was a warehouse and offices in City Road. It had no maintenance or parking facilities and the vehicles were kept at a car park a mile away.
The Metropolitan deputy Licensing Authority had taken the view that an office could not be an operating centre and that it must have a physical connection with the vehicles. It had to be a place where the vehicles were kept and maintained.
Mr Feder said that the deputy LA had regarded the application as a test case and had commented that if he was wrong in law he was satisfied that in all other respects the application should be granted.
However, since the refusal the Tribunal had heard appeals by the RHA against decisions in three cases where the operating centre was a private house and licences were granted. These appeals had been refused.
Having regard to those decisions, Mr Feder submitted that the appeal by Owen House should be allowed, even though they had been in rural areas and this application was in the centre of a town. Under the law there could be no difference between town and country.
The president of the Tribunal, Mr G. D. Squibb, QC, said: "We must conclude that while we are not bound by our previous decisions this is a case in which one can clearly say that these premises qualify as an operating centre."
Turn to News Extra on page 32 zf this issue for a lawyer's view on the Tribunal's recent decisions.