'TRAFFIC IN LICENCES'
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REFUSING an application for a B licence and ordering the immediate withdrawal of a short-term licence last week, the Northern Licensing Authority Mr. J. A. T. Hanlon, said: "I consider nothing in the spirit or letter of the law authorizes me to approve such a transaction. It was a traffic in licences. He took over someone else's licence and should have known the terms of the licence and kept within them".
Mr. John Robson, of Sunderland, had applied to the LA, at Newcastle, for a B licence. His solicitor, Mr. G. N. Robson, explained that the licence was wanted because he had acquired a haulage business formerly carried on by Mr. Henry Bell and Mr. Robert Young as St. Helens Transport, Bishop Auckland.
The applicant said in evidence that he had paid over £850 to Mr. Bell and Mr. Young for the purchase of their business and one of their vehicles, a four-wheeled tipper. He was at present operating under a short-term licence.
Mr. Hanlon said that Mr. Robson operated the business without a carrier's licence from September 22, 1965 to December 29, when he was granted a short-term licence.
The haulage firm which he was purporting to purchase was operated with two vehicles used for carrying coal, topsoil and road and building materials. Mr. Robson began to carry colliery stores and waste. This was not authorized by the short-term licence.
The business that he proposed to operate was not the sort for which he was licensed and was in a different town—Sunderland, as opposed to Bishop Auckland.