Licence Plans for Midlands Holidays
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NEWproblems had been created for the coach operator with the introduction of staggered industrial holidays in the Midlands, the West Midlands Traffic Commissioners were told in -Birmingham on Tuesday, when 40 operators applied to vary the conditions of road service licences.
After hearing of the difficulties in predicting the amount of traffic during the holiday month, which begins officially on July 13, the chairman of the Commissioners, Mr. John Else, outlined a plan to give express and excursion operators a free hand -during the staggered holiday. Express and excursion operators should, he said,. be allowed to spread their peak week's vehicle allowance over the fourweek holiday period. They should declare how they intended to distribute their vehicles so that the figures could be included on their licences.
Operators covering three weeks of the staggered holiday month would be permitted to spread their vehicle allowance in the same way, but they, too, should make a firm declaration of intended use.
Firms licensed for only two weeks of the period presented a problem, and Mr. Else divided the operators into areas. In Coventry, two-week operators would be permitted to spread their vehicles along the same lines as their existing licences for the old holiday period.
The split in Birmingham's industrial holiday appeared to be evenly distributed between the old fortnight and the new; the Commissioners were prepared to allow operators to run their vehicles on any three weeks of the month providing these weeks were declared.
Of Wolverhampton and the Black Country, Mr. Else said there was no evidence to show that the old holiday fortnight had been changed and he proposed that operators' licences there should not be changed.
With the two peak holiday weeks changeable throughout the month the widening of the scope of licences had. become necessary.
" This is not to be taken as an opportunity for operators to jump on the bandwagon ", said Mr. Else. If any further allowances were desired each•application would be treated on its merits, he said: Northern Appeal Fails
TN a written decision the Minister of i Transport has dismissed an appeal by Service Coaches Ltd. against the decision of the Northern Traffic Commissioners in refusing to grant to the company an express carriage licence for a service between Gateshead and a construction site at Cambois Power Station, The grant of an express carriage licence for the service to Blaydonian Coaches Ltd. was also appealed against.
The Minister noted that the application by Service Coaches referred to a weekly payment for the services to be previded. On the other hand no evidence was laid before the Commissioners about the existence of a contract.
It seemed to the Minister that the evidence was not such that the claim of Service Coaches to have sonic special sort of relationship with the site contractors could be given sufficiently substantial weight to cancel out the claims of Blaydonlan Coaches, based on proved earlier service.