No Lawyer No Licence
Page 38
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
TWO RECENT P.S.V. APPLICATIONS DISCUSSED
LISTENING to an application for a new road service licence, which came before the South Eastern Traffic Commissioners sitting at Brighton last Friday, I was both amazed and dismayed at the complete lack of knowledge of even the slightest basic rudiments of p.s.v. licensing shown by an applicant. After the application to which I was listening had been refused, I mentioned my amazement to the court clerk. His reply was: "You should have been here last Wednesday ".
The case he was referring to was an application by a Brighton Continental tour organizer, a Mr. J. R. Cotton, who was seeking the renewal of a road service licence authorizing a series of excursions
and tours using a "mini-bus ". Mr. Cotton wished to operate, if his licence was renewed, a 51-seater coach instead of the mini-bus; but, during the course of the hearing, his requirements " shrank " and he modified the application, first to a 40-seater coach, and then eventually he asked for the mini-bus to be licensed again.
Mr. Cotton, who was not represented by a lawyer (and he had pretty obviously taken no legal advice about the matter), told the Commissioners that he catered for a certain clientele which could only manage to take a ten-days' tour. He had received "many requests" for tours in 1963 and could offer written evidence about this.
Skilful cross-examination on the part of Mr._J. R. C. Samuel-Gibbon, representing Southdown Motor Services Ltd., and several other operators who were objecting, produced the admission that Mr. Cotton wanted a larger passengercarrying vehicle so that this year he could make a profit—last year's operations, he admitted, had not been a financial success. Further questions by the chairman of the Commissioners, Mr. H. J. Thom, revealed that the application had, it seemed, been made out of pique, because, apparently, some Southdown drivers had embarrassed Mr. Cotton within the hearing of some of his clients.
The Inevitable Result No prospective clients were called to give evidence to support Mr. Cotton by corroborating his contentions with regard to demand. On the other hand, three witnesses gave evidence against him on behalf of the objectors.
The result was inevitable—an outright refusal of the application.
The circumstances surrounding last Friday's case were in some respects similar to those described above. The applicants—F. R. and E. C. James, trading as Regency Tours, of Brighton —were organizers of Continental tours: They wanted a new licence to enable them to operate a series of excursions, B20 employing local coach operators, to take clients to air and seaports where they could be taken to the Continent on day trips, returning to Brighton late at night. The objectors were Southdown, again, plus several others who had objected to the Cotton application, British Railways and London Transport.
The brothers James, also, were not legally represented, and they told the Commissioners that they had not sought legal advice before making their application. This was very apparent when Mr. E. C. James, giving eovidence, said that the sole reason for the application was what he alleged to be the dieselengined coaches employed by Southd own causing discomfort and sickness to passengers, which he said was a "real problem" bearing in mind that some of them were sick at the very outset of a long day of touring. This allegation was, later, summarily rejected by the chairman of the Commissioners.
Many Ignorant of Act
Under cross-examination by Mr. Samuel-Gibbon, who was again appearing on behalf of most of the objectors. Mr. James said that he had previously, during 1962, used a local operator who was not licensed to carry out the work he required. To the remark: "We did not know there was such a thing as the 1960 Act ", augmented by the statement that most travel agents in Brighton did not know there was such a thing, Mr. SamuelGibbon exclaimed: "Really—and yet you are travel agents whose task it is to advise the public ".
No witnesses were produced by the applicants to corroborate any of the statements made, though it is fair to say that the applicants did have a witness in the court, when the case was commenced, who would have spoken as to the illness and discomfort experienced when he travelled in a Southdown coach.
After Mr. Thom had thoroughly satisfied himself that the basic, in fact the sole, reason for the application was the alleged unsuitability of the Southdown coaches, he stopped the case and refused the application, without either calling on the objectors or hearing submissions from their advocates.
His actual words to the applicant in the James case were these: "What I want
is the evidence of people who have tried to get to the Continent on these day trips and found the facilities unsuitable or inadequate. There is not a single voice here to say so and I cannot accept your statements that the vehicle vibrates too much. We shall want very much detailed evidence of this ".
Had the applicants in both the cases described above taken legal advice, they would, no doubt, have been told that their reasons for requiring licences were not sound. It would have been explained to them that what was required' to make out a prima facie case was good witnesses who could speak of the difficulties they had encountered using currently licensed facilities, and who could speak of their desire to use the facilities the applicant had applied for if they were granted.
Their lawyer would, no doubt, have acquainted them with subsection 2 of section 135 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, which rules that Traffic Commissioners, before granting a road service licence, shall have regard to the extent, if any. to which the needs of the proposed routes or any of them are already adequately served; the extent to which the proposed service is necessary or desirable in the public interest anti, finally, the needs of the area as a whole in relation to traffic (including the provision of adequate, suitable and efficient services, the elimination of unnecessary services and the provision of unremunerative services) and the co-ordination of all forms of passenger transport including transport by rail.
Becoming the Vogue
It seems to have become the vogue for travel agents and/or tours organizers to be the holders of air licences, enabling them to operate (though they don't physically operate them) aircraft to certain foreign destinations. But this is not the case with road service licences. If grants were made willy-nilly to booking agents, or travel agents, the whole set-up for passenger vehicle licensing would be thrown off balance, and coach operators would be virtually at the mercy of such agents. It is for this reason that such applications as are made are so much opposed by existing operators.
Returning to the two Brighton applications again, there is an obvious moral to be drawn. For the smaller operator. who wants to operate p.s.v.s and seeks a licence to allow him to do so, or who is merely applying for a renewal or even a small modification of conditions, it is common sense to seek the advice of a lawyer who has a knowledge of licensing. Remember the old saying: "The man who represents himself has a fool for a client ".