National tours plans rejected
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NATIONAL Travel (North East) Ltd's plans to offer one, two and three-day trips to the Continent direct from eight West Yorkshire towns (CM, April 22), have, with one exception, been turned down by the Yorkshire Traffic Commissioners.
It had been proposed to offer direct facilities from Halifax, Sowerby Bridge, Elland, Featherstone, Castleford, Pontefract, Wakefield, and Normanton.
Oppostion was forthcoming from Wallace Arnold Tours • Ltd and Heaps Tours Ltd, and the Commissioners only granted authority for National to operate from Wakefield, via the ports of Portsmouth and Southampton.
Wallace Arnold's assistant licensing officer, Brian Parkin, said the proposals were bound to lead to abstraction from the Wallace Arnold programme from Huddersfield, Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield. In addition, it was proposed to offer facilities from Halifax for the first time in the 1978 season.
A director of Heaps, A. S. Blackbourn, said the company was seeking to improve the facilities it offered from Wake• field.
After 10 public Witnesses had given evidence in support, R. A. Heslett, for Wallace Arnold, suggested it was insufficient to justify anything but a grant from Wakefield, for operation to France, via Southampton.
Peter Fingret, replying for National, argued that the public evidence showed a general demand for the proposed facilities.
Neither objectors offered comparable facilities in regard to price and duration, and Wallace Arnold did not offer any mini-tours in the high season.
Commissioners' chairman, Maj-Gen V. Carpenter, said it was accepted, in general, there was a need to avoid uneconomic competition and maintain a balance between the operators. But they did not feel the evidence was strong enough to sustain anything other than a very limited grant.