1947 Act Raises Removal Costs

22nd September 1950, Page 93

22nd September 1950

Page 93

Page 93, 22nd September 1950 — 1947 Act Raises Removal Costs

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Mr. H. Norman Letts on Excluded Traffic and Permits at R.H.A. Conference. Mr. G. F. Stedman Explains Ministry of Transport's Work

UNDER the Transport Act, return loads cannot be carried by furniture removers other than those with widespread organizations, and the cost of removals must therefore be increased, to the detriment of the public. Mr. H. Norman Letts, 0.B.E., M.Inst.T., who made this point in a paper entitled "Intricacies of Independent Transport," which be read at the annual conference of the Road Haulage Association, in Scarborough, this week, added: It may be possible for those engaged in this class of activity to combine, so as to avoid this increasing expense to the customer, who otherwise may be forced into a position when price alone controls his selection of his furniture remover."

Mr. Letts gave valuable advice on the position of the remover under the Transport Act. He criticized the interpretation of " ordinary furniture removals" in Section 125, as leaving the reader rather more bewildered than he would have been without it. " The expression 'furniture or effects' is of the widest significance," he said, "and its employment appears to indicate the intention of Parliament that all kinds of personal and movable domestic property should be carried for hire or reward without any restriction as to distance, but subject always to the limits imposed by the statutory definition" in Section 125.

In an " ordinary " furniture removal (excluded traffic), the owner of the furniture or effects need not be the owner or even the tenant of the premises to or from which the goods were to be transported. He might, for example, be a mere permissive occupant. In Mr. Lett's opinion, camp equipment could probabjy be regarded as furniture or effects, and could lawfully be carried as excluded traffic for hire or reward from the home of the owner to a camping site which he occupied, and back.

Borrowed Furniture It was, however, essential that the furniture or effects should be carried for the person to whom they belonged. It seemed that such goods lent by one person to another could not lawfully be transported for hire or reward outside a radius of 25 miles by an independent operator without a permit, although the removal was from one house of the borrower to another house of his. The furniture or effects would not belong to the borrower, whilst so far as the owner of the furniture was concerned, the removal would not be from or to premises occupied by him, to or from other premises occupied by him.

"Whilst furniture or effects can also be carried for hire or reward without a permit and without limit as to distance for the person to whom it belongs, from or to premises occupied by him, to or from a store, that store must not belong to a person from whom the farniture or effects have recently been purchased, or to whom it has been, or is

about to be, sold," Mr. Letts continued. In the circumstances mentioned in the exception, the owner of the store could presumably carry goods purchased from or sold to him, on a vehicle authorized to be used by him on a C licence, but an independent operator could not lawfully carry the goods for a distance in excess of 25 miles from his operating centre without a permit, whether he was employed by the owner of the store, or his purchaser, or vendor of the furniture or effects." Mr. Letts quoted "liquids" as one of the expressions in the Act which were "obstinately obscure." In popular parlance, he said, the word would include such items as milk, beer, petrol, white spirit and distillate, but this by no means exhausted the extent of the expression. "Cement, as distributed in modern times in liquid .form, is clearly a liquid,'" he said, " and, it 'is sobrnitted, can be carried . for hire or reward for any distance withdut a permit, provided it is carried either in a tank permanently fitted to the vehicle, or in a tank not so fixed which has a capacity of 500 gallons at the least."

Purchase of Business On the subject of permits, Mr. Letts said that if an operator whose activities with his licensed fleets were confined to short-distance .and/or excluded traffics, purchased the business of another haulier who did long-distance work under an original permit, the purchaser could not continue that work without an ordinary 'permit.

Comparing the provisions of the 1933 Act dealing with the suspension or revocation of licences, with those of the 1947 Act covering the suspension or revocation of permits. Mr. Letts said that the 1947 Act contained none of the safeguards afforded to the operator by the earlier measure. "An original permit may," he said, "be revoked, apparently, on breaches of conditions attached to a licence other than that authorizing the use of the vehicle to which the original permit relates. And on a strict interpretation of its provisions [of Section 54 (4)1 the permit could be revoked or suspended for one breach of arty of the conditions of the Licence, even though that breach might not be sufficient of itself to warrant the revocation or 'suspension of the 'licence."

Mr. Letts gave a warning that if an operator whose original or substituted permit was revoked, concentrated all his activities within a 25-mile radius, he must exercise care lest, when he next applied for the renewal of his licence under the 1933 Act, it was contended that the change in the traffic carried by some of the vehicles constituted a change of circumstances of the business. The haulier might then have to justify the need for all the vehicles specified in his licence to operate within that radius.

In his address, Mr. G. F. Stedman, C.B.E., ME., of the Ministry of Transport, described the work of the Ministry, which, he said, was carried out in close and constant consultation with bodies representing the transport industry. Dealing with the question of what the Minister's responsibility to Parliament for the activities of the British Transport Commission should be, he stated that there were many problems in this matter requiring solution. Parliament's apparent desire that the Minister should deal with matters relating to the wcirk of the B.T.C. which were at present outside his control, arose from Members' desire to satisfy themselves that the Commission was doing its job efficiently. The organization of the Commission by splitting it into five Executives was obviously the only practicable arrangement to start with, said Mr. Stedman. Whether it would prove equally suitable later, or whether some other arrangement, such as on a regional basis, would be better, only time would reVeal.