" Irregular " Entry to Livestock Haulage : Tribunal's Criticism
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CRITICISM of a Welsh haulage firm who entered livestock haulage
" irregularly" is contained in a decision issued by the Transport Tribunal this week It is stated that the firm obtained A licences for 10 vehicles on representations that livestock haulage would not be undertaken Three vehicles were later applied to this work and no step to regularize the position was taken until the application, about the refusal of which the appeal was concerned, was lodged.
Messrs. Williams Bros., Trefnant, had failed to secure an A licence for three vehicles to carry livestock and agricultural produce and requisites, and appealed.
One of the partners of the appellant firm was associated with a business of the same name carried on at Queens. ferry, some 23 miles from Trefnant Appellants had 10 A-licence vehicles. four B-licence vehicles and eight contract A-licence vehicles. No livestock had been carried before August, 1954. it was stated.
When vehicles of the Trefnant depot of British Road Services were being sold, one was disposed of to the Queensferry firm. When he went to collect, it, Mr. E. L. Williams was prevailed upon to undertake an urgent delivery of sheep to Oldham, although he intended to lay up the vehicle for overhaul and repainting.
Three Livestock Lorries The vehicle was used for livestock transport for about a fortnight, at the end of which an A-licence vehicle of the appellants was substituted for it. Later, two more vehicles joined it on such work. The three lorries were stilt engaged on livestock haulage at the time of the application in February last.
The decision states. During the 19 months before August, 1954, when the appellants diverted first one, and later two more, of their platform vehicles to the carriage of livestock. their 14 vehicles (excluding the contract-A vehicles) earned £69,769. The subcontracted work during the same period was put at £83,369.
" During the next five months, the fleet earned otherwise than by the carriage of livestock £16,161, the subcontracted work amounting to €33.238 13s. 3d. The amount earned by the carriage of livestock during these five months was £4.05l " Profitable Venture"
". it will be seen from these figures that the diversion of some of the fleet io the carriage of livestock was a profitable venture, the average earnings having increased from £3,672 per month to £4,042."
During the hearing of the appeal, the Tribunal interpreted references to letters passing between Mr. Williams and the Authority as showing that tacit approval of the appellants' livestock work had been obtained. Subsequently these letters were obtained by the Tribunal and, according to the written decision, they were " incapable of being read as supporting the Interpretation we had put on Mr. Williams' oral evidence."
The firm told the Authority that they felt it their duty to satisfy the demands for livestock transport, hut the Authority refused their application because he thought that existing facilities were adequate.
The Tribunal say that the admitted facts were such that the licence ought not to have been granted, irrespective of any question as to the suitability of existing facilities. The firm, in effect, states the decision, asked the Authority to condone their failure to fulfil their declared intentions when obtaining their licences, and to enable them to retain the livestock business which they had obtained.
"They were, we think, seeking to take advantage of their own wrongdoing." The appeal was dismissed.
RED LINE LINK WITH BLUE CARS IN future, Red Line Continental I Motorways, Ltd.. and 'Blue Cars Continental Coach Cruises, Ltd., are to work more closely together. Red Line have moved from their office at 17 Sicilian Avenue, London, W.C.1, to the Blue Cars head office it 224 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W.C.2.
Red Line will continue to operate the more luxurious type of Continental coach tour and will retain their own brochures, but the Press advertising of the two companies will be more closely interwoven. Red Line expect to benefit, too, from the wider agency coverage enjoyed by Blue Cars. Both companies are associated with the British Electric Traction Co., Ltd.