Transport Café Gains Consideration
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Oro a Main road near Lincoln a certain woman built up, at her home, a useful little business as a road-transport cafe. Unfortunately, however, there was no convenient parking ground for those lorries the drivers of which took advantage of the facilities she offered.. Consequently, the vehicles had to be parked along the roadside and this caused a considerable amount of trouble with the police and the local council. • To overcome the difficulty the owner of the café bought a piece of land adjoining the road and with plenty of space for the vehicles, and there erected a large wooden hut as a refreshment house.
For a time everything went well, but when wet weather set in, the ground became churned up and the position returned to what it was previously, with the lorries parking in the road, and, again, officialdom came forward with objections. In view of this, the cafe proprietor applied for a permit to have a road made into and out of her property, and for this she was willing to bear the cost. However, the permission was refused. All this was brought to our notice by the ownerdriver of a lorry, and we published a leader entitled " Local Authorities Should Help Transport Cafes." Following this, we received a letter from the Transport and Generkl Workers' Union corroborating the statements in this article and, subsequently, we sent full details of the case to the M .0. W .T A few weeks later we were notified by the latter that, as a result of representations made to the County Council by the Roads Department of the Ministry,. the Council had agreed to carry out all work required at the café owner's expense, so soon as the necessary labour became available.
We have, on occasions, criticized the Ministry, but in this instance we have a definite example of friendly co-operation, prompt action and official consideration which is most admirable. It also indicates that the Ministry can take a big view of even small but, nevertheless, important matters. whereas the local authority seems to have regarded the case as barely worthy of its notice.