Goods Licensing May be Overhauled: New Ideas for Future of B.T.C.
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BY OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT THE licensing of goods vehicles May be overhauled in the Road Traffic Bill which Mr. Ernest Marples, Minister of Transport, is likely to introduce before Easter, some Members of Parliament are hoping. Measures along such lines would show that Mr. Marples is not preoccupied solely with keeping traffic moving.
It is becoming appreciated that something should be done about the backdoor method of entry into haulage, by which the holder of a contract-A licence applies for an ordinary A licence at the end of a year. And, of course, the normal-user situation needs to be straightened out.
M.P.s have been casting about for new ideas for the British Transport Commission, following the Prime Minister's statement on the railways' future. Mr. A. Roberts (Lab., Normanton), for example, asked Mr. Marples to allow the Commission to run express coaches on motorways as they were developed. Mr. Marples pointed out that Stateowned bus companies were as free as anyone else to seek licences of this kind.
Law 'Misunderstood
Another misapprehension the Minister cleared up was that held by Mr. A. Woodburn (Lab., Clackmannan), who said that commercial travellers using cars were hampered by the 30 m.p.h. speed limit and the need to keep log sheets. Would the Minister do something about it?
Travellers using ordinary cars or dual.purpose vehicles, said Mr. Marples, were not subject to the limit or the log-sheet requirement, but if they used goods vqhicles they were bound by the same rules as other operators. lie did not think this was unfair.
Mr. Gresham Cooke (Cons., Twickenham) wondered whether the Minister would include in his Bill permissive powers to local authorities to carry out experimental parking schemes in towns outside London. This would enable the widest possible experience to be gained quickly.
Mr_ Marples replied that he was considering ways in which existing powers could be widened, but pointed out to Mr. Cooke that local authorities have powers under the Public Health Act to appoint parking places on and off the streets.
Certain authorities could apply to him for orders under the 1956 Act to designate street parking places where charges could be made.
Could traffic be quickened by co-ordinating groups of traffic lights? Mr. R. S. Russell (Cons., Wembley S.) asked this question and Mr. Marples answered that his divisional road engineers regularly advised highway authorities on the advantages to be gained by doing just this.
The new London Traffic Management Unit will be studying the possibilities of a further application of traffic-light techniques, 180m. LOSS BY B.T.C. THIS YEAR
P-1 A DEFICIT of £80m. by the British Transport Commission in the current year was forecast in the House of Commons last week by Mr. Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister. To this sum had to be added about £15m. interest on advances to meet accumulated deficits. The operating loss on the railways, including allowance for the 5 per cent, interim addition to wages, was placed at £45m. The Commission's total deficit now amounted to some £350m.