CONTRACT versus Stage Carriage
Page 49
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
LICENSING CASEBOOK by NORMAN 11.TILSLEY MAIDSTONE and District Motor Services were taking no chances when recently they objected to an application by Smith's Coaches to operate an express service between Faversham and Rainham Mark (both in Kent) to carry employees of the Bowater Packaging company's factory to and from their work.
The South Eastern Traffic Commissioners were told that just over a Year ago Bowaters entered into a contract with Smiths to supply a service and, apparently, Bowaters paid the whole cost of their workers' travel.
Maidstone and District—the established stage carriage operators in the area—whose time-table did not exactly meet the requirements of the men, offered to change •their timings. Bowaters, in the meantime, refused to " back " either the applicants or Maidstone and District (it was explained that they wished • to remain neutral), and it fell to the Commissioners, deprived of any assistance from the factory's management, to act as judge and jury to decide who should take the men to work.
Naturally, as is usual in cases of this sort, and more so in this case because they were travelling free, there was no shortage of witnesses to support Smiths —over half a dozen of them, as well as two trade .union officials, all of whom indicated that the stage carriage service was "totally inadequate."
Three recent cases have a bearing on the application under discussion. The first was an application before the West Midland Commissioners by Berresfords Motors, Ltd. who successfully applied to operate an express service between Brown Edge and a factory at Leek. The second, this time in the North Western area, concerned H. Thomas (Motors), Ltd. who were granted a licence to operate expresses between Salford and Leigh to carry people to a factory there.
The third case was that of R. P. Hardie, of Chester-le-Street, whose express service application to the Northern Commissioners to carry women working at a clothing factory in the Team Valley Trading Estate in Co. Durham was refused.
In the Berresfords and Thomas applications, the objectors—the established stage carriage operators—appealed to the Minister who, while stating that both were "very finely" (in the case of the former appeal) or "very delicately" (in the Tatter case) balanced cases, he found in favour of the " contract " operator and allowed the grants of the Commissioners to stand.
The converse was the case in the Hardie application. The Northern Commissioners refused him a licence—they considered that the Northern General Transport Co., Ltd., were adequately licensed to cover the needs of the employees of the factory—and he appealed to the Minister.
Again backing his Commissioners, the Minister dismissed Hardie's appeal because he had not shown that she Northern General's services were so inadequate as to justify a grant; there was no evidence of long delays at the bus station, and Northern General had shown that there was spare room on their vehicles leaving the estate.
With these three appeal cases in mind, Maidstone and District left nothing to chance. Their traffic manager, Mr. Stanley Smith, produced document after document to show that there was space on his vehicles at the relevant timings. He refuted allegations of continual Tate arrivals of his buses, and gave undisputed evidence of his company's observations on certain of the "contract" coaches being' operated by Smiths. Furthermore, he undertook to amend certain timings to suit, even better, the employeesof Bowaters.
The result was inevitable. The Commissioners dismissed the application and Mr. H. J. Thom, their chairman, spent a considerable amount of time in his decision explaining to the many workmen supporters of Smiths, who were sitting in the court, why the licence could not be granted.
He said: "If every little group of workmen, in every little factory ml the country were to make up their minds that public transport was not as convenient as a private service of the kind asked for today, the public services would disappear."
He said he would allow Maidstone and District to alter their timings to suit the workmen and then added: "If, at any future time, these workmen find that the company have not fulfilled their promise, or, that the service is in any way inadequate or unsuitable, it is open to Smiths (the applicants) or anyone else, to support a further application with evidence to that effect."
No doubt recalling the Minister's decision in an appeal against• them by B. S. Williams, Ltd. (in which the Minister considered that the South Eastern Commissioners had acted wrongly in reaching a decision before all the available evidence had been heard) the Commissioners. leaned over backwards'and heard perhaps morethan was absolutely necessary. The ease took most of :be day to hear and no punches were held back by either side (minibus operation was mentioned at one time, and there was also a suggestion that the trade unions were forcing &waters to pay for the men's travel). But:one important item did appear to be missing. Surely, as in goods licensing cases, the actual contract between the "contract " operator and his customer (Bowaters) should have been produced to the Commissioners.