Bid for Low-loaders Fails
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AN application by F. J. Hope (Transport), Ltd., of Hatton Road, Bedfont, Middlesex, for eight additional vehicles on A licence for the carriage of general goods and indivisible loads throughout Great Britain was refused by Mr, C. J. Macdonald, the Metropolitan Deputy Licensing Authority, in London on Monday.
Four of the vehicles sought were to be acquired, the remainder were already operating under a B licence which was to have been surrendered if the application had succeeded. The B.T.C. and several independent hauliers opposed the grant.
At an earlier hearing, Mr. Ralph Cropper, for the applicants, told the Authority that the company already operated eight vehicles on an A licence. One of the reasons for the application was to secure complete flexibility between all vehicles.
On Monday, Mr. F. J. C. Hope, the proprietor, in answer to Miss Elisabeth Havers, for the independent road operators, said that the four vehicles on B licence were forced to do a considerable amount of empty running because of their limited conditions. General goods amounted to about 75 per cent, of the carryings; the rest were indivisible loads.
The A-licensed fleet consisted of three 25/30-ton capacity low-loaders, but the vehicles to be acquired were only semilow-loaders of 16 tons capacity, which could be used for both classes, of traffic.
Giving his decision, Mr. Macdonald supported the submission of the objectors that there was no case to answer. Mr. Hope, he said, was unconvincing and sometimes completely irrelevant. Then there was the fact that Mr. Hope was also the managing director of J. Steele and Co,, Ltd., of Datchet, Berks, to whom Hope sub-contracted about 40 per cent. of their total work. He was entitled to know a very great deal more about that. It was a serious omission, In addition, there was another application being made for a vehicle on B licence and a variation to a, higher unladen weight on the A, neither of which had been mentioned.
Mr. Macdonald concluded by suggesting that Mr. Hope might consider an application for a B licence for a vehicle to take trailers to and from his customers' premises to his own depot.