Private-hire Precedent Claimed
Page 36
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ACLAIM that the grant of the applications would establish the principle that contract-carriage operators should have open excursion licences, was made before the Yorkshire Licensing Authority when five Sheffield operators applied to increase the number of vehicles they ran on anglers' trips.
This submission was made by Mr. W. H. Hargeave, who objected on behalf of Sheffield United Tours, Ltd. British Railways opposed four of the applications.
Mr. A. Keating. for the railways, submitted that assuming there was need for a licence to supplant private hire, he would suggest that it should not be a general excursion licence. What was needed was something to cover the peculiar circumstances only.
Submitting that it was a national, and not a local, matter, Mr. Hargeave said it would be improper under the guise of a licence to wink at something which the High Court had said could not be done. Special licences had to be issued to cover a similar position in 1932, and it seemed that that position had now 132. returned. The matter must be decided by legislation or national policy to which all operators must conform.
Mr. H. Evans, for the applicants, Mr. G. E. Whiteley, Mr. H. Jackson, Mr. E. Jeffcock, Law Bros., Ltd., and Sansom Bros. (Sheffield), Ltd., said the objectors had made more of the applications than was warranted. They were simply applications for licences to increase vehicle allowances, It was true, he said, that there had been private-hire working, and there must be a gap between the ending of that and the regularizing of the position.
The applicants were authorized excursion operators, and what they wanted to do was to cater for Sheffield's 30,000 anglers in a proper manner. They could do this only with more vehicles, and they would not trespass on the work of other operators.
At the close of the adjourned hearing on Monday, the Authority, Maj. F. S. Eastwood, said he thought the licences should be granted, but he deferred his decision until he had worked out a fair allocation of the extra vehicles.