B.E.T. Companies Fight Each Other for Continental Tours
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"IT is necessary to establish that there
1 is a sufficient number of people wishing to go on Continental tours, and who have been unable to gratify their wishes through the facilities as they exist. That the applicants have signally failed to do."
Mr. H. J. Thom, chairman of the South Eastern Licensing Authority, made this comment at Maidstone, last week, when he rejected an application by Maidstone and District Motor Services, Ltd., a B.E.T. company, for a licence to operate a number of tours on the Continent.
Among the objectors to the application were four other B.E.T. companies —the East Kent Road Car Co., Ltd., Southdown Motor Services, Ltd., Blue Cars Continental Coach Cruises, Ltd., and Red Line Continental Motorways, Ltd.—and Excelsior European Motorways, Lewis Leroy, Ltd., and British Railways.
It was stated that, until recently, Lewis Leroy, of Tunbridge Wells, employed M. and D. coaches to carry passengers on their Continental tours to the coast, but they were now handled by East Kent.
Mr. Thom said that both East Kent and Southdown operated tontinental tours, but they had never had to apply fora tour licence for them, as they ran them on express licences. Lewis Leroy had no locus as operators in this case.
The overriding consideration was the public interest. If desirability were the criterion, licensing control would break down.
East Kent had a picking-up point in Maidstone, which was the point from which the applicants wished to operate. There was no evidence to show that the Maidstone picking-up point was inadequate, and so the existing facilities must be regarded as adequate.
He hoped that more would be dope by East Kent to make the facilities from Maidstone better known.
An application by Excelsior for a picking-up point at Bearsted, near Maidstone, on their route to Dover, was also refused.