Tribunal told Continental work was not licensed
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IN AN APPEAL to the Transport Tribunal by the Transport Holding Co. on Tuesday, Mr. Richard Yorke said the assessment of an applicant by the East Midland LA as a man unfit to hold a carrier's licence was a leading feature of his case.
The Tribunal was told that the words used by Mr. C. M. Sheridan were: "I have rarely been so little impressed by the honesty of an applicant"; he was referring to Mr. T. A. Gartside, managing director, P. and H. Garage and Transport (Rothwell) Ltd., Kettering Road, Rothwell, Northants. The respondent did not enter an appearance at the Tribunal.
The company was granted an A licence for six tractor-trailer outfits for "general goods for export mainly through Hull and Dover and return journeys", but the company was required to give undertakings not to operate in Holland, Belgium, North Germany, North France and Scandinavia.
Mr. Yorke told the Tribunal that P. and H. had been operating illegally on a B licence certainly between March and October 1966.
Mr. Gartside, under cross-examination, had admitted that his company had carried for firms outside the conditions of his licence on several occasions. Particular cases of working for the Ford Motor Co. to Istanbul and for Simon-Carves to Russia were mentioned.
At least two of the three vehicles P. and H. wished to transfer from B to A appeared on no licence at all and Mr. Yorke alleged the company had concealed certain information from its accountants.
Of the evidence in support of the application, Mr. Yorke said that M. and S. Shipping and G. C. Morley, of Bradford, had been misled into thinking that P. and H. operations were for conventional TIR traffic and not for through services to the Continent. Indeed, M. and S. at a subsequent application of its own, had made it clear that it had no intention whatever of using P. and H. services.
This was not an application to put an untidy house in order, it was an attempt to obtain the rubber stamp of the LA. P. and H.
sought to set up a transport organization of its own and feed work into it on A licence.
The application should probably have been for a B licence and the fact that the LA had extracted certain undertakings from the applicant strengthened the view that a B licence was more appropriate.
The decision of the Tribunal will be made known in writing.