20-year-old Tour Restriction to be Maintained
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AN appeal order made 20 years ago by the Minister of Transport to restrict the number of additional vehicles to be run on excursions and tours from Manchester, has been upheld in an appeal decided last week. The Minister disagreed with his inspector, who recommended that the limit should be relaxed.
The appeal was lodged by Messrs. Wilson and Sons, Failsworth, Manchester, against the refusal of the North Western Licensing Authority to increase vehicle allowances for certain destinations in renewing a licence for excursions and tours from Failsworth. A number of operators sought the abolition, or at least relaxation, of an order made in 1933, controlling the number of journeys to any destination in any year.
• Intolerable Situation The case was one of vital principle, said Mr, H. Backhouse, for the appellants. Excursions and tours were becoming the " spot-ball" in this matter, because of the protection given to the respondents. They were being so eaten into by scheduled operations, particularly holiday express services, that it was impossible to tolerate the situation being created, The vehicle allocation authorized was " hopeless " for some of the destinations. The appellants had to refer inquiries to the North Western Road Car Co., which then hired the appellants' vehicles to carry the appellants' own traffic.
Mr. W, Tudor Davies, who heard the appeal, said that it was treated as if for a variation, and not for the removal, of the order, which had been intended to protect the railways. The respondents (Ribble Motor Services, Ltd., the North Western Road Car Co., Ltd., Lancashire United Transport, Ltd., and the Railway Executive) had emphasized that the order should remain in force until those whom it sIias intended to protect were shown to be no longer capable of serving the public.
A Strait-jacket Even if the principle of the order were retained, the inspector stated, the quantum could not be, because the circumstances which gave it birth no longer existed. The order was now a strait-jacket on excursion and tour operators.
"Broadly speaking," he continued, " I agree that the time has come for sonic change in the application of the order."
He concluded that it should be modified or relaxed, and the matter referred back to the Licensing Authority to study its incidence generally, and then to examine each application in the light of the new circumstances, new facts and evidence produced at each hearing, This, he thought, might have been in the Licensing Authority's mind in giving decision on this case.
The Minister, however, disagrees with the recommendation. Dismissing the appeal with costs, he finds "that the Licensing Authority refused to modify the particular restrictions under appeal not because of any hesitation to depart from the principle or the detailed application of the Road Service Licences (Appeals) Order (No. 9), 1933, but because they did not consider that sufficient evidence had been adduced to show that the modifications sought were necessary or desirable in the public interest.
` The Licensing Authority apparently recognize that Order 9/1933 does not bind them either in principle or in
detail in regard to subsequent applications for road service licences on sufficient cause being shown to depart from it. The Minister agrees with this view of the matter and does not consider that the appellants have shown sufficient cause to justify him in interfering with the decision of the Licensing Authority in this instance."
Order 9/1933 followed the promotion, in 1931, of a new type of co-ordination between 60 Manchester operators. This arrangement allowed each operator, even if authorized only one vehicle to a particular destination, to call on all the other operators' vehicles to run to that destination, Order 9/1933 limited this arrangement to a specified number to any destination in any year.
N.A.F.W.R. CONFERENCE THE National Association of Furni
ture Warehousemen and Removers will hold their annual conference at the Park Lane Hotel, London, W.I., from May 4-6.
The annual general meeting will take place at 2 p.m. on May 4 and there will be a dinner-dance in the evening. Conference sessions will be held on May 5.