Evan Cook B-licence Application Refused
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AN application by Evan Cook Ltd.. London, for a change of the normal user for 25 vehicles on B licenee wai refused last week by the Metropolitan deputy Licensing Authority. Mr. C. J. Macdonald.
Mr. A. W. Balne, for the applicant, said that the vehicles laboured under a normal user with a burden of words that was a nightmare. The company had three other vehicles operating under A licence with the normal user of "General goods, Great Britain" and wanted a common operational use of its 28 vehicles to carry all classes of goods on B licence throughout the United Kingdom. Given this, Cook could use the vehicles more economically and with mac benefit to customers, said Mr. Babe.
Cook did not seek to become ordinary hauliers, he stressed, and in fact, in 1962, only £18,000 out of a total gross traffic revenue of £332,000 was general haulage.
Objectors were British Railways and British Road Services. Mr. A. J. E. Wrottesley, for the railways, said that a substantial proportion of the applicant's business was already met by existing licence conditions and there was no case for any change. It was 'significant, he said, that no customer witnesses had been called to testify that different conditions were needed.
For B.R.S„ Mr. (3. Mercer said that the application really amounted-to asking for an A licence and was not the sort that the court could grant. Such an extension of conditions, he said, would mean that Cook would be doing what B.R.S. is now doing under an A licence.
The Authority said that many A licences did not carry such an assortment of goods named on the applicant's existing B licence, and that many A licences were simply glorified B licences, " We may have got into a state of muddle over lieences.", he added., . Refusing the application, Mr. Macdonald said that it might seem a matter of common. sense that all the vehicles should be in one pot, but his conclusion was that the applicant's main consideration was not so much for -the benefit of the -customers but for the great.‘.r usage and easier management of vehicles for the operator himself.