Bus Inquiry Brings Injunction Threat
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A FTER the threat of an application ins for an injunction, Portsmouth City Council decided last week to appoint Harold Whitehead and Partners, Ltd., to investigate the question whether oilengined buses should replace the municipal trolleybuses.
The transport committee had recommended the appointment of Associated Industrial Consultants, Ltd., to do the work at a cost of £9,500. CUL R. A. Bridger said he had taken counsel's opinion on the committee's recommendation.
He was advised that the council should not engage Associated Industrial Consultants to make the survey set out in their proposals, because it was not the work required and authorized by the terms of reference. If the council agreed to the appointment of that concern an application would be made for an injunction.
Some members thought the company had pre-judged the question, although A.I.C. said in a letter that certain conclusions which they had reached were based on information provided by council officials.
Harold Whitehead estimated that to make a report on the future of the trolleybuses and examine the joint agreement between the corporation and Southdown Motor Services, Ltd., would cost £2,520. A further fee of £2,520 would be required to report on the setting up of a system of cost control.
PUBLIC NOT READY FOR SMOKING BAN.
DUBUC opinion was not yet ready to
accept the abolition of smoking on single-deck buses, where smokers were requested to sit at the rear, Dr. L. G. Norman, chief medical officer of London Transport; said last week.
Addressing the Royal Sooiety of Health, he said there was little evidene.e that a smokes fumes could haren his neighbours' health, although bus conductors sometimes had bouts of coughing caused by smoke on the upper deck of a bus. Any tendency towards bronchitis was probably aggravated by a smokeladen atmosphere.
He described the exhaust fumes from I.ondon buses as a negligible cause of air pollution. ,
HORSES REDEEM THEMSELVES ,
nNLY horsed trams made a profit for
Douglas Transport Department in the past financial year, and a loss of £9,945 has to be met out of the rates. Total revenue was £107,045, against an estimate of £126,000. Motorbuses cost £94,010 to run and income was £84,420. The horsed trams made a profit of £1,645.
It is expected that the pattern will he repeated this year, with the buses losing £11,100 and the trams making £5,760, leaving a net deficit of £5,340, to cover which there are no reserves.
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