Judge backs NBC in market survey bottle
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A HIGH COURT judge last week refused to order National Bus Company subsidiary Crosville to hand over survey forms, which included information on Wrights of Wrexham. The action followed an attempt by Wrights to sue Crosville and another independent, T. Williams and Sons, over the release of information gatt ered in the Market Analysis Project survey in the Wrexham area.
During a two-day hearing Michael Kershaw, for Wrights, said that Crosville had decided to mount the survey and the Clwyd County Council provided funds to include the inlepe ndent operators.
Wrights had agreed to take )art provided it was supplied vith all data on the services of di three operators, including he computer analysis conaining the route alternatives. Services in the Wrexhamtilos -Penycae corridor were ;ran :ed by the Traffic Cornaissioners and had expired 12 nonths ago and even then the :ommissioners indicated that he corridor was "overussed".
Clwyd proposed variations of the services in May and after discussion, decided to support Crosville/Williams proposals.
James Bonney, for Crosville, said that they would have preferred to have the MAP results but the county had produced its own proposals which all three operators agreed were impractical — so Crosville had been forced to produce something. Wrights had received copies of the survey forms on its own services but not those of the other operators who had refused to supply them to Wrights.
Mr Kershaw argued that this was breach of contract and if the county had not had the consent of the other operators to supply Wrights with the complete information when approaching the company then it was guilty of fraud and deceit.
For Williams, Mr T. Learning said that Williams would have been happy to supply the data if asked in any other way than by writ.
Mr M. Kaye for the county said that there was no contract to give the information and it resented any interference with the processing — but it was prepared to copy Crosville forms for 060.
It was also prepared to write to the commissioner saying that it felt that future considerations should be left until the completion of the MAP.
The hearing was adjourned to a date to be fixed.