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Railways to Leave Negotiating Machinery?
Page 52
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FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT UMOURS that British Railways may be pulling out of the Road Rail Negotiating Committee machinery are causing much speculation. Although the other parties to the machinery, BRS and RHA, could continue to operate the scheme, the experienced RRNC secretariat, largely staffed by men seconded from British Railways, would be lost in the revised set-up. Unless, of course, the committee secretaries, and their invaluable files, were transferred to new employers.
If the customary 'vetting filter" provided for so long by the RRNCs were liquidated, the nature of the road haulage industry would be transformed. LAs, already subjected to increasingly onerous duties, could hardly face with equanimity the prospect of heavier labours. Even if many more applications were granted in chambers, executive and clerical officers would need to proffer much advice to their Authorities, and many hauliers would surely prefer their own representatives to determine needs, in a large proportion of applications, rather than rely on anonymous civil servants, with no practical experience of traffic management. The devil you know is better than the devil you don't . . .
If Dr. Beeching really intends to empty the baby with the bath water, it behoves the industry to take prompt action to beget a most lusty infant—that is, to establish viable and unsinkable machinery to continue the generally appreciated work of the negotiating committees.
Preston Inquiry
tAA SECTION 178 inquiry into the
conduct of Kirkham Carriers Ltd., Btackpool, was adjourned at Preston last week when it became known that a pending application in the Northern area by W. Keith and Son Ltd., of Grangeover Sands, was directly relevant to the revocation hearing.
Mr. G. Newman, deputy Licensing Authority, said the Section 178 inquiry concerned alleged infringements of normal user and base, and three vehicles involved were the subject of a new application just lodged with the Northern Authority. He asked Mr. Backhouse, solicitor for Kirkham Carriers Ltd., to write to the Northern Authority to explain the circumstances giving rise to the adjournment: the Section 178 inquiry would resume, he said, when the pending application had been disposed of. Mr. Backhouse promised to do this.
Concluding the hearing, Mr. Newman said he proposed to send his files to the Northern Authority, who would no doubt have regard to applicants' conduct of their licence in the North Western area. (Note: Grangeover Sands, Lancs. comes within the jurisdiction of the Northern Authority.) n18