1. Important Preliminaries
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BY NORMAN H. T1LSLEY
HAVE you had an application refused lately? Have you been up before your Licensing Authority armed with, you thought, ample evidence that should have won you at least twice the tonnage you were seeking; with figures and evidence that you thought would stagger any Licensing Authority and knock the opposition, especially British Railways and the Transport Holding Company (the "Heavenly twins" as they are sometimes referred to in licensing circles) for six?
What went wrong then? After all, you would not have applied for additional vehicles or tonnage if you had not wanted them. Your business, or part of it, is that of carrying other people's goods for hire and reward and you would not be foolish enough to spend thousands of pounds on additional vehicles if you could not employ them—or would you? Unfortunately, some hauliers are too ambitious and think that the greater the number of vehicles they can line up in their yard on Saturday mornings the higher the status symbol, whether or not they can operate them economically.
It is for this reason that, under the present goods (and passenger) vehicle licensing system, an applicant must be able to prove that there is a need for the additional facilities he is seeking. This sounds easy enough, but a look in the dictionary reveals that even the word " need" is ambiguous. It can mean inevitableness, compulsion, requirement or hardship. But it can also mean "to want" or "require ", and additionally there is a deal of difference between need and ambition.
If you can prove that you need more or bigger vehicles to cater for your existing customers then, provided you have a good character as a haulier, according to the law you are entitled to have them. But there is no provision whatsoever in licensing law for ambition.
However, it is• not quite so simple as that. Afraid of your ambitions; afraid lest you take away custom from them, your compatriots will be quick to spot, or be told about, your application when it appears in "Applications and Decisions ", and within the space of a few days you will probably receive telephone calls from neighbour hauliers—those that you are talking to, anyway—asking what you are up to.
Objections Will Follow If you do not satisfy these callers then, a day or so later your post will contain copies of objection notices that have been sent to your local Licensing Authority stating either that suitable transport facilities in the area would be in excess of requirements if your request was granted, that you have not been operating your existing vehicles within the terms of your current licence, or maybe that you have been convicted of certain unlawful acts with regard to the operation of your haulage business.
But you know all about this, don't you. You have probably had this happen to you before, and this is all a matter of routine preliminaries leading up to your appearance before the Licensing Authority at a public inquiry. In any case, when you obtained your application form from the Ministry of Transport's local office they were kind enough to give you some notes for your guidance, telling you how you can support your application and so on.
D2 You may well have gone wrong already—having submitted your application and having received objections from your colleagues in the business.
Why did they phone you up so quickly after learning of your application; why—leaving aside the "Heavenly twins" for the moment (they have their own psychological methods by which they decide whether or not to object)— has old so-and-so down the road formally objected to you? There could well be a simple answer to this. Your application in "As and Ds" may not have been explicit enough about what you intended to do with your additional vehicle or vehicles. A quick glance through "As and Ds" will generally reveal some pretty ridiculous wording that applicants seek to have incorporated in the user of an A licence, or in the conditions attached to a B licence. It is obvious that not much thought goes into the question of application form filling. Very often applicants copy out the wording of the user on their existing licence. This could have been granted four or five years previously and contain places, commodities and customers' names that are no more so far as the business is concerned. Other hauliers in the area (and outside it if they purchase your area's "As and Ds ") may know that you do not now normally carry some of the goods that you have declared in your application form.
Take Advice
What is all this leading up to, you may well ask. Simply this. You cannot be a haulier without a carrier's licence. Licensing, therefore, is basically the most important aspect of haulage. Take qualified advice about your application before you lodge it. If you belong to the Road Haulage Association, go and consult your local area secretary. Do not, as so many applicants have admitted to Licensing Authorities in the past, just sign a blank application form and leave it to others to complete. If you do not belong to the Association, then seek advice from a transport solicitor who, if he considers the matter to be critical or important enough, will recommend the obtaining of advice from a barrister.
Yes, this does cost money; but in the end it could save you a lot of expense and wasted time. Many of the appeals that have come before the Transport Tribunal could have been avoided if the right user or conditions had been sought in the first place. The Tribunal, moreover, has many times ruled that the correct kind of licence had not been applied for in the first place.
There is another aspect to this matter. Many hauliers— and here I am referring to large concerns as well as to the small haulier—put their applications in for additional vehicles and do not consult the lawyers until the date of the hearing is fixed. They then expect their solicitor Of barrister—purely and simply because they are professional people—to succeed, without the adequate preparation that is so necessary at the outset. This is totally unfair, results in disappointment and sometimes ill-feeling, and is a complete waste of money as far as the fee they have to pay.
Assuming that you have been prudent enough to have sought proper advice at the outset and have lodged your application, then be courteous enough to inform other hauliers, whom you think may be concerned at your application, about what you are doing and why. It is cheaper and easier to obtain additional vehicles or different licences by negotiation than it is to have to go to court and satisfy not only the Licensing Authority but also objectors. Time, and therefore money, is saved if an unopposed application is granted "in chambers ". It is for this reason, even if the applicant and his adviser consider that he has a watertight case, that invitations to the Road and Rail Negotiating Committee should not be scorned—as they so often are. It is usually at this stage that British Railways and British Road Services and/or Pickfords come into the picture.
True, these committees have nothing to do with the Licensing Authorities. There is no provision for them in the Road Traffic Act and attendance is entirely voluntary.
Many hauliers—especially the larger concerns---refuse such invitations. "Why should we meet these people and beg them to pull out and show them our figures, and so on, when we know we have a good case ", they say. But most Licmsing Authorities in their annual reports and elsewhere praise the work of these bodies, which often secure agreement between applicants and objectors and the subsequent withdrawal of opposition.
Take Your Solicitor to Road and Rail To safeguard your interests, however, it is always advisable to attend such meetings with your solicitor. So often hauliers give in andjor agree to the deletion of part of their applications when there is no need, working on the principle that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Having sought advice in framing an application in the first place—and presumably having convinced the • lawyer of the need for the additional facilities—it may be that by some very slight amendment to the wording of an application the objectors will withdraw, leaving the application virtually intact.
But having got advice on the groper kind of licence to apply for and the correct wording to be applied to it having consulted other hauliers in the district and met objectors across the table at "Road and Rail ", and still the objectors persist, the next and most important stage is that of public inquiry.
What preparation is necessary to submit documents that will convince the Licensing Authority of your need? What evidence is necessary from the applicant himself and from supporting witnesses to ensure success? Once an applicant can establish in the mind of the Licensing Authority and the objectors that applications are only made by him when there is a definite identifiable and proved need. then_ it will be very much easier to obtain grants in the future. The sooner hauliers realize that no licence application ends at the end of the public hearing, the better. All applications should be made, and are looked upon by opponents as having been made, with an eye to the future as well as the present.
Having discussed the question of oral as well as documentary evidence with transport lawyers, I propose next to explain in detail the kind of information they would require from their clients in order to present a watertight application. (The second part in this series will appear in the January 22 issue.)