Promise of Improved Rural Services
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RURAL bus services would be " very much improved ", promised the Prime Minister last week. It was a question of the cost of them, he added, during exchanges in the Commons. He had been asked by Mr. Rupert Speir (Tory, Hexham) and Mr. Jasper More (Tory, Ludlow) what consideration he had given to assisting and improving rural transport following the deputation he received last December. Final decisions on this matter ought to take account of the special studies of rural transport, replied Mr. Macmillan. Full results of these studies, set up by the Minister of Transport, were expected by the end of June. Mr. Speir, who had led the deputation, thanked the Premier for the personal interest he was now taking in this problem, but warned that intense irritation existed in rural areas at the failure of the Government to get to work on it.
It was mote than 11 years since the Conservative Party, in its election manifesto, promised better services, went on Mr. Speir, and more than two years since Professor Jack's Committee had reported.
He pointed out that the National Association of Parish Councils considered the surveys being made of rural transport were so unnecessary and such a waste of time and money that they were not co-operating on them. He regretted the delay, answered the Prime Minister, but he hoped it would not now be long before a decision was made.
Identification
NAR. MARPLES was asked in the J.VI Commons last week if he would seek powers to compel all commercial vehicle owners to put their names and addresses on each side of their vehicles.
Turning down this suggestion by Mr. LeSlie Spriggs (Labour, St. Helens), the Minister said: "I consider that the registration mark provides a sufficient means of identification ".
Warning Signs THE Minister of Transport proposes shortly to make regulations authorizing the use in certain circumstances of warning signs when vehicles are stationary on the road. Announcing this in the Commons last week, Vice-Admiral John Hughes-Hallett, Parliamentary Secretary to the Min:stry of Transport, pointed out that the powers in the Road Traffic Act, 1962, did not enable the Minister to require drivers to use such signs. The compulsory use of these signs had been mentioned by Mr. J. A. Stodart (Tory, Edinburgh West), who thought that road accidents might be reduced if a red triangle had to be placed a specified distance behind parked or broken-down vehicles.