How to Apply for "consent D URING the hearing of the
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appeal by Glasgow Corporation against the Southern Scotland Traffic Commissioners' refusal to grant consent for a service in the Eastwood area, it was suggested that the Ministry of Transport might formulate grounds on which such an application should, be determined. Divergent views were expressed as to the matters that fall to be considered by the Commissioners.
In ordering that the consent should be granted, the Minister quoted from certain decisions of his predecessor. The Commissioners, in dealing with an application for consent, he says, have not to consider whether, generally speaking, the applicant is an efficient operator, or whether there is a prospect of its becoming desirable for the authority to have powers to run public service vehicles outside its own district An application for consent has to be in respect of a particular route. No doubt, the Commissioners would be justified in withholding consent if they considered that the authority was an inefficient operator, but it is necessary that a prima facie case should be made out for the operation of some kind of service on the particular route to which the application relates.
At this stage, the Commissioners need not consider the type of service required, or its frequency, or any of the usual conditions attaching to road service licences. In giving their consent, they are not committing themselves in any way to granting a road service licence a36 They must nave evidence that there is some need for an additional or altered service, if the traffic requirements of the applicant's district are to be adequately served. Furthermore, some ground must be substantiated for holding that the new facility should be supplied by the applicant authority.
The fact that adequate services are already in existence does not, however, appear to make it necessary for the Commissioners to refuse consent. Services may be adequate, yet be capable of improvement. Moreover, so far as the 1930 Act is concerned, an operator who is providing a satisfactory service has no absolute right to a licenco for its continuance