Tribunal Uphold Lowest Tender by Haulier
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THE first appeal decision to turn upon the question of rates was given in writing last week by the Transport Tribunal. The written judgment followed a verbal decision on November 5 (The Commercial Motor, November 14).
A. J. Parsons, A. W. Merriott, W. Viney, Ltd., Cox's Mid-Somerset Transport Co., and B. Wynn and Sons appealed against the grant of a B licence to Mr. K. G. Weaver for the carriage of roadmaking materials and plant for Somerset County Council.
Mr. Weaver quoted the council 10s. per hour on the basis of a 44-hour week. This was lower than the rates quoted by anyone else, which varied from lls. 6d. to 13s. an hour. His tender was accepted.
The Tribunal decided that 10s. an hour was sufficient to enable Mr. Weaver to meet the cost of rendering services to the council within the meaning of Section 44 of the Road Traffic Act, 156. The Tribunal held that the appellant's facilities were unsuitable within the meaning of Section 11(2) of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, as explained by Section 9 (3) of the Transport Act, 1953, in that the charges to be made for those services substantially exceeded those quoted by Mr. Weaver.
"Other things being equal. due consideration for the interest of the county council made it desirable that they should be enabled to take advantage of this substantial difference in rates." says the Tribunal. The Licensing Authority was right to grant the licence. The Tribunal comment that the tender should have been submitted in evidence, but was not.
The Western Licensing Authority, the Tribunal say, appeared to have regarded the previous Tribunal's decision in the Sergeant case in 1948 as precluding the grant of a contract-A licence in the case of a contract such as was assumed to have been constituted by the council's acceptance of Mr. Weaver's tender.
"The facts in Sergeant were exceptional, and with all due respect to that Tribunal, we do not find their judgment easy to understand," the Tribunal observe. "We are not convinced that it was intended to have the effect attributed to it by the Licensing Authority. If it is to be read in that sense we think it was wrong and should not be followed. In our view a contract-A licence is the most appropriate licence in a case such as this. was assumed to be."
ISection 44 of the 1956 Act allows a Licensing Authority to suspend or revoke a licence because the holder "has been persistently charging for services which consist of, or include the carriage of goods by road in any of the authorized vehicles, sums insufficient to meet the cost of rendering those services and has thereby placed other holders of licences at an undue or unfair disadvantage in competing with him Section 9(3) of the 1953 Act places the onus of proof of an objection upon the objector and includes rates in the matters to which a Licensing Authority shall have regard in deciding whether existing transport facilities are suitable.I