'TERRIFYING'. . . BET SPOKESMAN LOOKS AT Mrs. C's CONURBATION PROPOSALS
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THE Transport Minister's proposals on conurbation transport authorities were described last week by Mr. Peter Yorke, national iirector of the BET public relations committee, as "quite terrifying". The proposals, he said, could lead lot only to dearer and less flexible ms services in the conurbations but Ilso to "downright disaster" in the -ural areas outside them.
Transport, he said, was a service provided )y people for people, and the present intricate atterns had evolved over theyears ,constantly :hanging, under constant review, closely mit and co-ordinated through the tireless !fforts of the operators themselves—under le wise control of the Traffic Commissioners —highly sensitive to local needs.
Now all of that seemed likely to be destroyed tt one blow in the name of "the sacred cow of' ntegration, the means to justify the end".
Added Mr. Yorke:—"Mrs. Castle seems to be leeply shocked that the size of the individual leets vary from single figures to several hundreds.
he does not have to be. Ask a man in Ramsbottom 12 vehicles) which he prefers: an undertaking
vhere he calls the manager by his Christian lame, or a faceless monolith controlled partly 'rom the centre of the conurbation and partly 1-om London?
Don't do it
"Ask Sir John Elliot, especially well qualified o answer because he was chairman of the London 'ransport Board from 1953 to 1959. Sir John ad this to say of area boards last September, /dung in a transport publication:— " 'We have, in the Tilling, BET and Scottish bus iroups the finest system of bus operation in the vorld, and acknowledged by other countries to be o. To put all these into some theoretical sack of ocal planning seems lunacy. Where today you lave pride of tradition and service, and brilliant mow-how, we shall, I am sure, have muddle, lelay, frustration and growing deficits. .. . Don't lo it. Mrs. Castle, don't do it.'
"It was precisely for these reasons that similar chemes proposed by the Labour Government Luring 1948 to 1950 were abandoned out of sheer mpopularity.
"The ruthless destruction of everything that las been so carefully built up over the years tppears to include the total or partial abolition of he Traffic Commissioners, who have done so nuch for the development of the industry. Preumably their writ will still run outside the conirbations, but the doubt is going to be whether hey will have any services left to control. "The memorandum naively speaks of theneed o leave operationally viable units which can Tovide effective bus services both within and out ide the CTA area'. That is indeed a wonderful Irospect for the unfortunate company selected or the purpose. With the bulk of its paying serices and no doubt most of its depots and workhops taken away from it, it is presumably to be :ft the bare bones sufficient to cross-subsidize
a lot of rural services incapable of standing on their own feet. I repeat that the effect on rural services would be disastrous.
'The memorandum is packed full of entirely unsubstantiated criticisms of our industry, and is based on false premises quite out of keeping with the true facts. The greatest need of the bus industry in conurbation areas, as the Minister well knows, is freedom to move. Congestion is by far our biggest bugbear, and it' Mrs. Castle can cure that, she will be doing something really worthwhile. What is wanted is less ideology and more action.
East Kent Profit Up: The East Kent Road Car Co. Ltd. profit for the year ended September 30 was £194.219. compared with a profit of £161,838 the previous year. Gross traffic receipts and other revenue totalled £2,778,674, compared with £2,649,122.
Hovercraft paper for S R PTA's forty-fifth
THE 45th annual conference of the Scottish Road Passenger Transport Association will be held from April 25 to 28. As usual, the venue will be the Turnberry Hotel, Turnberry, Ayrshire.
This year's paper will be by Mr. R. Stanton Jones, deputy managing director of British Hovercraft Corporation.
MERLINS CONFIRMED
LONDON Transport has confirmed that as
part of its plan for reshaping bus services, delivery of 150 AEC Merlin single-deckers with MCW bodies will commence in the latter part of next year. Details of the order were given in COMMERCIAL MOTOR, October 7.