Coventry grant 'frozen' for five months
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PERMISSION was granted to Coventry Corporation to replace its present fare stage system with one of zones by the West Midland Traffic Commissioners sitting in Birmingham last week. However, as this entails a fares increase, the grant will not come into effect until January 1.
The Commissioners made it clear they had no intention of "setting themselves above the Government" by allowing increases during the six-month "freeze".
Coventry's assistant town clerk, Mr. R. W. Hinton, submitted that the Government White Paper left room for the Commissioners to grant the application if they deemed it essential.
It was stated that the Corporation's accumulated deficit on running buses was £211,449 at the end of March, and by next March would be £421,349, but if the Commissioners allowed the increase it would be cut to £142,900 by March, 1968.
Transport manager Mr. N. McDonald said in evidence that present fares varied between 3d. and Is. 4d. and the proposal was that they should go up to between 4d. and Is. 6d. The zonal boundaries would be about f-mile apart, based on concentric circles reaching out from the city centre.
Adoption of zonal fares meant basically that the charge to the passenger was determined on "mileage as the crow flies rather than as the bus runs".