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Nationalization piecemeal?
Page 71
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IT looks as though the cat is out of the bag. The more we have learned about Mrs. Castle's plans for Conurbation Transport Authorities the less practical justification there has seemed to be for this vast and costly upheaval. Now it appears (see page 78) that the principal object is, as many operators feared, to achieve public ownership of the bulk of the road passenger industry which is not already State-owned.
Even the details are significant. We find that the plans are no longer confined to conurbations: the Minister will have power to establish transport authorities covering the whole country and so CTA disappears and PTA (Passenger Transport Authority) apparently becomes the title—to the undoubted dismay and confusion of the other PTA.
Operators' representatives have, with justification, assumed that this is the first step towards nationalization —and neither calling it "localization" nor using local authorities as agents in the process can disguise the true effect.
The PVOA and BET have now declared war on the proposals and they must not be deterred by the piecemeal, local authority nature of the plans. The municipal corporations' action shows that operators will have many local councils on their side in this.
Mrs. Castle has scornfully equated the idea of advisory, co-ordinating CTAs with taking a double decker to crack a nut. That double-decker should now be driven swiftly and surely through the holes in her far-reaching plans. There are plenty of vulnerable spots. For example, one of the planks of the CTA project was integrated transport and traffic planning, but the Ministry now concedes that this is impossible.
Bask in the surprisingly sunny reception accorded your freight transport plans, madam Minister, and quietly put this unpopular CTA/PTA project into cold storage.
Trumpet blast, please