House of Fraser Bid Continued
Page 36
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IWILL say there is a case for converting some of the C vehicles to 13 licences," said the Scottish deputy Licensing Authority, Mr. Ivo Townsend, at the end of the applicant's evidence in the House of Fraser group of applications which commenced last Wednesday at Edinburgh. As reported in The Commercial Motor last week, House of Fraser, Ltd., Binns, Ltd., Patrick Thomson, Benzie and Miller, Ltd., and J. and A. Ogilvie—all companies under the control of House of Fraser—were applying for a40vehicle conversion from C_ to B licences in order to co-ordinate the vehicles operating for the individual companies and, it was hoped,
operate a lesser number of vehicles." The applications were opposed by 20 operators, including the B.T.C.
After a short adjournment on Wednesday to see if any agreement could he reached between the sides, Mr. W. G. Spence, House of Fraser's transport manager, gave evidence. He said that the real aim was to tidy up distribution in Scotland. Of a total of 520 vehicles operated by the group, 49 had A and B 1 icences.
Mr. R. Mackenzie, for 10 objectors, contended that the vehicles were not fully employed. There were 11 subsidiary firms and seven others in the applications. if a grant was made, the existing B licence holders would be given more scope. The effect was that they wished to retain their B licences and allow House of Fraser vehicles to do work for the subsidiaries, so freeing the B-licence vehicles. Mr. Spence told Mr. D. Brown, for the B.T.C., that the group were not seeking to do household removals by the appli cation, and agreed that that condition should be deleted from the application. After the ruling that there was a case for the objectors to answer, it was urged upon Mr. Townsend that the application should be refused because there was lack of specification and evidence; there was no case of failure to serve customers; there was no information what the applicants wanted to carry or to what points. Replying, Mr. T. H. Campbell Wardlaw, for the applicants, said that all that had been heard from the objectors was "Words, words, words." A good witness might have been better. The application was adjourned so that the applicants could provide further figures of earnings of the A and B vehicles over two or three years, and give information about the advertising costs of Wylie and Lochhead (one of the companies involved) with regard to furniture removals. [The Commercial Motor understands that the application will be listed for hearing in October, unless the sides reach agreement in the meantime.]