New Restrictions on Removers ?
Page 45
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By Will the Condition which the Metropolitan Licensing
Arthur R. Wilson, Authority Proposes to Attach to B-Licences Granted to
M.I.R.T.E. Removers have the Desired Effect ?
CHB new condition which the Metropolitan Licensing Authority proposes to attach to B licences for removers is unlikely to clarify the boundaries thin which removal contractors can legally operate.
suggests a condition: "Household and office atovals " for a certain mileage. This, he claims, will tantamount to the existing stipulation: "Ordinary rniture removals as defined at Section 125 of the
.ansport Act, 1947." Like identity card numbers, the Dlody is still to linger on.
The household removal trade has built its reputation "use and wont," a service to its customers covering . the odds and ends of the business in addition to
-aightforward house-to-house removals, aspects which
a not included in the suggested condition. This could visualized as the start of a movement to segregate novers into narrow channels where no one would be
owed to effect a household removal unless it was so
ecified in his licence, and possibly where any other iss of work would be precluded on that licence, tether A or B. Surely the prtsent Government, in its !eing of road haulage, did not intend to place further ittictions on this important section of industry.
If, as the Authority claims, the new condition allows ecisely what the existing one does, it can be taken It the definition of an "ordinary furniture removal," e wording of which no one so far has succeeded in :erPreting, will still apply. This dentition reads:— " The removal of furniture or effects, not being part of the stock in trade of the person to whom they belong, from or to premises occupied by that person to or from other premises occupied by him or to or from a store, not being the store of a person from whom he has recently purchased or hired the furniture or effects or to whom he has sold or is about to sell the furniture or effects."
No authority has yet stated when an ordinary furniture noval is not an ordinary furniture removal, and the atm so far as I am aware, has never been tested in judicial courts.
Is it a Removal ?
Does a suitcase of personal clothing and a portable ho (effects) belonging to a boarder in a house or tel (premises) being transferred to another house or tel constitute a removal or not? Does the carriage tourists' luggage from ship to hotel or an emigrant's ;gage from house to ship (in both instances "effects ") me within its scope? Although involving a haul of rhaps only a mile or two, the questions are not pothetical.
Should the proposed condition be implemented, the mover will be left wondering whether he is going tside the terms of his licence on many local jobs. An ample of what would happen is that if a warehouse d retailer changed premises in the same town, the nover would not be able to touch the stock-in-trade, it is specifically debarred as an "ordinary furniture noval."
There are doubts, too, about the disposal of a deceased rson'siestate,,which, depending on the instructions of executors, means the removal of furniture and effects
either to a saleroom or to various legatees. Sales or auctions are not mentioned in the definition. It must be taken, therefore, that the movement of single articles or multiples of articles of furniture and/or effects to and from salerooms or from private houses where the contents are being auctioned, will not be permitted within the meaning of the Act. The term "new furniture" whether it be from manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer, is excluded, yet often part of a normal service is to collect a suite or other articles from such a source at thd actual time of removal from house to house.
Most established removers have depositories which are used not only for the storage of household effects, but for many other facets of the trade. People contemplating setting up house often buy new, second-hand or antique furniture and store it until their house is ready. On occasion, overseas buyers purchasing antiques and objects of art in Britain store them until suCh time as a load is made up for shipping.
Border-line Cases
Exhibits from art exhibitions, exhibition furnishings, theatrical scenery, camp and hostel furnishings, are all items of "use and wont" where storage, as well as direct removal, is frequently necessary. None of these examples is covered by an "ordinary furniture removal," and it was only after strong representation that substituted permits valid outside a 25-mile radius were granted to those operators who had normally engaged in that class of work.
It was observed in The Commercial Motor On September 1, 1950, that: "The draft of an ordinary furniture removal' has been compiled by someone without the slightest conception of the technicalities of the removal trade. It should be scrapped in its entirety and rewritten in plain language." That this state of affairs should exist after the repeal of the 1947 Act is, indeed, a retrograde step, and if carried to its logical conclusion will make a mockery of the licensing situation.
Ignorance of the law is not accepted as an excuse for breaking it, but how is a remover to know when and where he is committing an indiscretion when every word can be debated? Conditions adopted by a licensing authority should be in clear and concise language as they have been in the past. Interpretation should not be left to the individual who, in this particular case, has so many avenues in which to go innocently astray.
Another aspect which causes some foreboding is that although the Metropolitan Licensing Authority proposes to take this action there is no mention of the policy which is to be adopted in other traffic areas. Are there to be different conditions pertaining in the different areas, or will restriction eventually be common to all? Will vehicles running into the Metropolitan Area under wider conditions of use be able to take traffic out which home-based vehicles under restriction cannot touch?
It would be well for removers to consider the imponderables in this proposed action before the end of 1954. Whilst it is undoubtedly true that mountains can be made out of molehills, a snowflake at the top of the, same mountain can become an avalanche at its foot.