PART GRANT FOR PRIESTLEY
Page 43
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A N application by Joe Priestley I-1(Warrington) Ltd. to vary their normal user by including steel and paper and adding four new vehicles and four new trailers to their present A licence was granted in part by Mr. G. Newman, the North Western deputy Licensing Authority, at Manchester on Friday.
Mr. G. H. P. Beames, for Priestley, said the applicant already had nine A vehicles with "mainly soap products, detergents, chemicals, cased goods, paper and steel to London, South Wales, Bristol and Scotland" as their normal user, and three on Contract A licence. The Lancashire Steel Manufacturing Co. Ltd. was the concern behind the application for the new vehicles, and although it was not the policy of the company to support licensing cases they would be appearing for the first time to support the applicants. Objecting were British Railways, Pickfords, Sutton and Son (St. Helens) Ltd. and three other hauliers, all represented by Mr, I, Booth.
Mr. J. Priestley, managing director of the applicant company, gave evidence and in cross-examination by Mr. Booth agreed that about 50 per cent of his outward traffic, especially at the end of the year, was outside his normal user. He also agreed that he had not signed the application form for new vehicles but had signed the form for variation of the normal user to include steel and paper. At this stage Mr. Booth said there was no case to answer and added: 'In my experience of this court, if a call of no case to answer is made, the point of law is dealt with then, before the case continues." Mr. Newman disagreed and said that the case would continue and ruling
on the point of law would he decided later. Mr. Booth, Mr. J. Lawton, representing Pickfords, and Mr. L. Manchester. representing the railways, declined to call -evidence and all backed Mr. Booth's submission.
In his final submission .Mr. • Booth maintained there had been no evidence given of the need to carry paper. Concerning steel, he said that the applicant had stated he thought it permissible to carry 40 per cent outside One's normal user and the 40 per cent had been steel.
He went on to Quote a recent Tribunal appeal finding •which stated that traffic outside the normal user can be given in evidence but that. on its own, was not considered enough for the grant of a licence. Finally, Mr. Booth said that he thought this was a glaring case of an operator who had ignored his normal user. either recklessly or deliberately.
Mr. Beames said he did not understand this attack. His clients' businesses had increased and steel had been carried extensively. It was in late 1962 that Mr. Priestley had first started carrying steel and he could not understand how someone can decide to approach the Licensing Authority and ask for a variation within the period which had elapsed since first carryings and the time of the application. So far as the normal user problem was concerned, Mr. Beames contended it was a curse on the haulage industry that no set rules had been introduced since 1933.
Mr. Newman thought that the call of no case to answer was not justified and granted the application for a variation of the normal user but granted only two vehicles and two trailers out of the four applied for.