Transport Tribunal Decisions
Page 45
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South of Border Operation Restricted
ANEW commodity made from residue at distilleries in the North of Scotland, and used in animal feeding stuffs, caused a Scots haulage company to increase their business in England, the Transport Tribunal were told in Edinburgh on Tuesday.
The Tribunal dismissed an appeal by the British Transport Commission against the grant of a new licence to Taylor's Transport (Buckie), Ltd. The grant had the effect of allowing the firm's 18 vehicles to operate in England, as well as Scotland.
The appeal was dismissed on condition that the applicants restricted their business in England to 331 per cent. of their total business.
Mr. D. B. Weir, counsel for the British Transport Commission, said the introduction of England into the vehicles' normal user gave rise to the Commission's objection. He pointed out that previously only one of the firm's lorries had been entitled to operate in England.
The grant of a licence to this one vehicle was the subject of an earlier, and unsuccessful, appeal by the British Transport Commission to the Tribunal. Mr. A. P. Brown, solicitor for Taylor's Transport, said there had been a gradual evolutionary change in the pattern of the respondent's business due to the new commodity, "Whoever carried this commodity," he stated, "would not have had it in their declaration of normal user."
Giving reasons for dismissing the appeal, Sir Hilbert Hull, chairman of the Tribunal, said that what it came to was that the Taylor company found themselves in the latter part of 1959 gradually drifting into a situation in which the amount of traffic they were undertaking south of the border was not within their normal user.
"They have rtaken a new application to put themselves right by surrendering their current licences and applying for a new licence with a new declaration of normal user which will conform with the actual circumstances of the traffic they will actually undertake."
Sir Hubert said the Tribunal did not think there was anything to be said for reopening the question of whether the Taylor company should be penalized for operating south of the border, in breach of their normal user, before applying for a new licence.
He recalled that two local licensing authorities had dismissed the breach as unimportant.