Service granted
Page 6
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AN OPERATOR, who was offered a subsidy by the Highland Regional Council and invited to apply for stage services presently run by the Sutherland Transport and Trading Company, has been granted licences to operate by the Scottish Traffic Commissioners.
W.W. and J.D. Hutchinson of Lochinver had applied for licences for daily services, excluding Sundays, between Craggie and Bonar Bridge and between Lochinver and Craggie. The company was opposed by Sutherland Transport and Trading, Sutherland District Council, Creich Community Council, Lairg Community Council and Kincardine and Croich Community Council.
For Sutherland Transport and Trading it was said that there was not room for two operators on the routes concerned, which were revenue supported by the regional council to the tune of £1 8,00 0 a year, with fare revenue running at around £5,000 a year. Consequently, the commissioners were being asked, in affect, to choose the one which would operate the service.
There had been no question of the services being put out to tender. The matter had been raised by a councillor when the amount of subsidy to be paid to Sutherland Transport and Trading fell due for discussion. The regional council decided to offer Hutchinson a subsidy and to invite it to apply for licences without any reference to the existing operator and without knowing whether Hutchinson would be prepared to operate.
It was argued that the proposed Hutchinson operation was detrimental to the public when compared with the existing operation as the company was not proposing to offer quite as good a service.
Announcing the commissioners' decision, the chairman, Hugh McNamara, indicated that although they took a dim view of the way the regional council had gone about things, that was not really a matter for the commissioners. They did not accept the argument that they had to deal with the matter on a basis of a choice between the two operators. They had to deal with the applications as they were before them and on that basis it could not be said that they were against the interests of the public.