Pool application 'insurance policy' says objector
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APOOL of six members of the Shropshire
Omnibus Association, applying to combine excursions and tours to Manchester, would have been on better ground applying for an express licence, Mr. J. C. Perks, for objector H. Brown and Sons, told the West Midland Traffic Commissioners in Birmingham last week.
But it was later pointed out that three of the six had applied for such a licence and it had been refused.
The pool, consisting of Midland Red, G. Cooper and Son, A. L. Jones and Co. Ltd., Smith's Eagle Coachways Ltd., M. H. Elcock and Son and I. Ashley and Son, sought authorization that all traffic emanating from the six could be combined and carried by any of the operators provided vehicle allowances were not exceeded (COMMERCIAL MOTOR, November 25).
The pool also opposed a notice to vary from the Commissioners seeking to protect Brown's express service to Manchester which operates on Tuesdays and the first Saturday in the month, by preventing the pool and other local operators from operating frequently on those days.
The Commissioners reserved their decision.
Mr. Perks said the application was regarded by the pool as an insurance policy, and that was not a good ground for making a grant. The combination of excursion and tours licences was in substitution for an express service, and they wanted to operate on the same days as Brown's service.
Each member of the pool was applying for extra picking up points but no evidence of need had been produced to justify them.
Dealing with doubts about the legality of some of the pool's methods of operation expressed at a previous hearing, Mr. Perks said he had come to the conclusion that the operators had allowed themselves to be guided by an imaginative barrack-room lawyer which led to hiring boards to be switched from one picking-up point to another.
"What has happened here is that each of the operators has obtained a licence from the pool and is now asking the Commissioners to rubber stamp it," he stated.
Mr. Perks raised the question of whether, in their notice to vary, the Commissioners had intended to limit each operator to six occasions a year or each licence to six occasions. If this clause referred to licences, it afforded little protection for Brown because Cooper alone held six licences and so could operate 36 times a year. He submitted that the Commissioners should republish that part of the notice.
Mr. H. Tranter, for all the applicants except Midland Red, admitted that the pool's Manchester operations had been running uneconomically last year, but he asked the Commissioners to regard it as an experiment which must be given a chance to prove itself. The pool was the most important step forward taken in passenger road transport in Shropshire for many years.
He asked the Commissioners not to limit the pool's Tuesday and Saturday operations drastically. The result could be the suspension of thdtr excursion and tours to Manchester.