BUS DEVELOPMENT IN MONMOUTHSHIRE.
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An Urban District Council Proposes to Utilize Powers which it has Secured.
A PROPOSAL of interest in respect I% of bus services in Monmouthshire mining areas now engages the attention of the Risca Urban District Council and the Abercarn Urban District Council. Some months ago, as reported in The Commercial Motor, some ten urban district councils in the Monmouthshire valleys discussed the promotion of a Parliamentary Bill to authorize the institution of jointly owned bus services to embrace the greater part of the county. The proposal was affirmed in principle by the majority of the councils ; the more so that the several applications of individual authorities to Parliament for running rights were unsuccessful.
B36 Ultimately it was resolved to defer the actual promotion of the scheme, in view of the state of local industries and the fact that the prevailing heavy local rates might tend to militate against the success of the Bill. One of the local authorities interested in the scheme had, however, already been empowered to establish a bus service, although it had not exercised its powers in view of the existence of road-travel facilities, considered to be satisfactory, provided by private enterprise.
It is now proposed that this authority, the Risca Urban District Council, shall make use of its powers, local opinion being that if the Risea Council runs buses through the several areas, with the assent of the various authorities, little difficulty would be experienced in obtaining the necessary sanction to join in the ownership of an existing municipal enterprise by the councils in whose districts the buses ply for hire. In other words, liability for the service shall be spread over a number of different local authorities.
The Abercarn Urban District Council propose to co-operate with the Risca Council in the initial venture, and a meeting of the representatives of the two councils has affirmed tbe proposal that the services of Messrs. Lewis and James, Newbridge, the largest Monmouthshire undertaking, who maintain routes throughout the western valleys and through-services from the mining districts to Newport, be acquired. Negotiations between the councils and the private owners are to be entered upon, and it was stated at the joint meeting that some measure of understanding had been arrived at as a basis of further discussion between the councils and the proprietbrs.
In any case the necessary sanction of the Ministry to the borrow-4v and expenditure of money for establishing a service is to be sought by the local authorities. In view of the depression of local industry, however, it is said to be not unlikely that the Ministry will veto the inauguration of the scheme for the present.
It is interesting to note, in view of the proposed mi.:Adelina service, that tentative negotiations for the amalgamation of certain Monmouthshire private-bus enterprises have been reported to have been made.