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Applications for Traffic Emanating in Other Areas

6th December 1963
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Page 50, 6th December 1963 — Applications for Traffic Emanating in Other Areas
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

THE publication in the Northern area Applications and Decisions of an application by a Metropolitan-based operator to vary a B licence issued

by the Metropolitan Licensing Authority (as envisaged in "Licensing Casebook" on October 25) is unique, common sense, and is to be applauded. However, it raises certain difficulties and, in view of certain recent and conflicting utterings of the Transport Tribunal, certain doubts.

The applicants, Chemitrade Ltd., of London, had originally applied to the Metropolitan L.A., Mr. D. I. R. Muir, to add two tankers to their licence and to widen the existing licence conditions to include the carriage of bulk liquid chemicals for ICJ. Ltd. and another customer During the hearing, Mr. Muir was told that Chemitrade tankers visited

at Billingham 30 times a year on average, and on those occasions it wanted to bring back return loads of I.C.I. liquids to the south. Because of this, Mr. Muir adjourned the application and said he would contact the Northern Licensing Authority. Mr. J. A. T. Hanlon, with a view to having the application published in the Northern As and Ds to give any Northern-based tanker operators, who may not have known about the application, an opportunity to object and be heard.

As exclusively reported in The Commercial Motor the application was published in the North with a note that any objections should be forwarded to the clerk to the Metropolitan L.A. in London, and it remains to be seen whether, in fact, anyone comes forward to object and, in so doing, reopens the whole matter before Mr. Muir.

On this question the Transport Tribunal (under the presidency of Mr.

G. D. Squibb) has been somewhat elusive. Only very recently it came face to face with the problem in appeals by

H. R. D. Maconochie and W. L. Roebuck Ltd. v. W. Barnes where the traffic arose in the Yorkshire area and the application was made in the North West and, in this anneal, although it was urged upon them by Mr. J. R. C. SamuelGibbon that there was a "great danger" that operators in Yorkshire might not have had an opportunity to object. the Tribunal merely quoted the B.T.C. v. Stamper appeal, in which the Tribunal in 1957, under the leadership of Sir Hubert Hull, had said that "a Licensing Authority should proceed with extreme caution when estimating the requirements of another area of which he cannot have the same general knowledge as he has of his own area ".

In a preliminary judgment" in the c14

Carman Transport Ltd. v. British Railways Board and Transport Holding Co. appeal the Tribunal made the definite statement: "There is no power to make an application in the area in which thc traffic sought to be carried originates unless that is also the area in which the applicant's operating centre is situated," using section 173(2) of the 1960 Act and Regulation 8 of the Goods Vehicles (Licences and Prohibitions) Regulations, 1960 as authority.

Here again the Tribunal quoted the words of Sir Hubert Hull in the B.T.C.

v. Stamper appeal and added: "A Licensing Authority in such a case should attach far less importance to the absence of objections from persons carrying on business outside his area whose interests may be affected by the application than he would to the absence of objections from such persons carrying on business within his area."

The Tribunal's view on this matter, quoted above, would seem to be in direct conflict with an appeal judgment given by Sir Hubert Hull in the case of the B.T.C. v. King, in 1961—a judgment given subsequent to the much-quoted B.T.C. v. Stamper appeal. In King—this was an application by an Eastern area operator to carry traffic originating in Sussex for delivery to the Midlands and Manchester—Sir Hubert said this: "It would, we think, be well in such cases as this if the Licensing Authority concerned were to take some steps to ensure that publicity is given in other areas to the fact that he is about to consider the requirements of those areas."

Well now, this is exactly what Mr. Muir and Mr. Hanlon have done by publishing the Chemitrade tanker application in the Northern As and Ds. But their joint action could raise a technical difficulty which may eventually have to be sorted out if, in the future, applications such as this are duplicated, or even triplicated, etc., in As and Ds up and down the country; especially if there is an interval between the applications, bearing in mind, in any case, that As and Ds are not published in different areas on identical dates. (Some, by the way, are published weekly; some fortnightly.) Objections have to be made with 14 days of the As and Ds publication. : this particular case, any Metropoliti. operator who missed the boat and omitti to object to the first publication of ti application in the Met. area will be ab to object when the second applicati( appears in the North, provided he within the statutory 14 days. As the A stands, Mr. Muir would be bound listen to this " late " objector and would seem to put the applicant at disadvantage if there should be any la " ganging up S' on him as a result of al publicity that may be given to the origin hearing of the application.

Northern Grievances Aired in N. Western Court

THE North Western Licensii 1 Authority, Maj. Gen. A. F. Elmslie, recently held a " revocatit inquiry" as it is commonly terme under section 178(1) of the Act an after hearing pleas and argumeni and some evidence, he revoked an licence issued to A. T. Booth (Ma chester) Ltd., of Salford, in whio were specified two articulated vehich The grounds of the revocation we simply that the company, which lu declared its intention to operate fro a base in Salford had, on its ov admission, for over a year opera14 from a base at South Bank, in tl Northern Traffic Area carrying ste outwards from Tees-side. (T., Commercial Motor, November 2: At the outset of the case, Maj. Cie

Elrnslie quoted extensively from the tra script of an application made by Boo

to the Northern L.A., Mr. J. A.

Hanlon, which was refused and which now the subject of an appeal to tl Transport Tribunal—indeed, I unde stand that it is one of the next appea to be heard, probably during Decembe At the outset of the revocation hearin too, Mr. Henry L. Walker, the chairrm of the company, asked that the revoc lion hearing be adjourned until after ti hearing of the appeal against ti Northern I,.A.'s refusal. Mr. Walk said that if the appeal was heard and dealt with before the revocation inquiry was started, " many desperate things" which might be said to justify the company's actions might be avoided.

Mu]. Gen. Elmslie refused this request -and many more made by Mr. Walker

— and declared his intention to sit if necessary until a. very late hour to ensure that the matter was dealt with.

As Mr. Walker had prophesied, many desperate things were said—so despevte that on several occasions Maj. Gen, Elmslie ordered them to be struck off the shorthand record—although, after the luncheon adjournment, he ordered them to be reinstated. Apart from evidence given by two Northern area enforcement officers, and some questions posed by the licensing Authority himself about the operations of the Booth vehicles, the

case developed into an attempt at justification on the part of Mr. Walker of suggestions made by him that the Northern Authority, Mr. Hanlon, had "consistently badly treated" both himself. ,and his company in the Northern Area. Mr. Walker was agitated about the alleged fact that enforcement officers

had approached his customers while carrying out investigations into the activities of the vehicles. He said that he had written to the Minister of Transport about Mr. Hanlon who had " subjected me to more investigations and more inquiries than I have ever experienced in almost 40 years in transport". Mr. Walker even mentioned that he was proposing bringing an action against Mr. Hanlon (I have since ascertained that a firm of solicitors has approached Mr. Hanlon asking who would accept the service of a writ).

But the statements and the submissrons made by Mr. Walker were all to no avail and, at a late hour, the Major General said that he had no alternative but to revoke the licence, and an appeal is to be lodged against this decision.

True, in view of the admissions about the base of the vehicles, the Authority had to impose some penalty on the company for its conduct; hut, with due respect to him, would it not have been better to have acceded to Mr. Walker's pleas for an adjournment until after the Northern appeal had been dealt with?

As it was, grievances were aired in public, and it turned out to be more of an inquiry into the alleged activities of the Northern Licensing Authority than into the affairs of A. T. Booth (Manchester) Ltd.


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