Big Operators to Run to Atomic Plant
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IN a reserved decision, the North I Western Traffic Commissioners have granted licences for express services to the Atomic Energy. Establishment at Risley. They are to be run by Lancashire United Transport, Ltd., and the North Western Road Car Co., Ltd., from Appleton and by those companies and Warrington Corporation from Broomedge.
Similar applications by F. Sykes and Sons, Ltd., Warrington, were refused.
At public sittings in Manchester on February 25 and March 27 it was said that Sykes had been irregularly running the services with contract carriages until January, but had been unaware that deductions were being made from employees' wages. Abortive requests were made to L.U.T. and North Western in 1956 for a stage service and there was no invitation to work under subsidy.
The Commissioners say there is now sufficient justification for the provision of through road facilities to Risley. Sykes' application was based on the fact that they ran what they believed to be contract carriages, under arrangement with the Atomic Energy Authority, early in 1957. Although the company may not have been aware that road service licences were required, the evidence' of the A.E.A.'s representative left no doubt that he knew licences were needed.
On the other hand, the joint operators, singly or together, provided a network of essential stage services in these districts, and there would be abstraction if a licence were granted to Sykes. The joint operators' unremunerative rural services must be supported by paying routes.
The provision of new facilities by them might well enable all the A.E.A. services in the Warrington-Risley district . to be reconstructed to allow maximum loads to be carried with the minimum number of vehicles at the least possible cost to the Authority and their employees.