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The Road Haulage Association, which lost appeals to the Transport Tribunal against the grant of licences to three applicants whose operating centres were regarded as dubious, now seems to be back-pedalling. The Association thinks that the Foster committee's strong views on the environmental aspects of transport bases go much too far.
The committee recommends that "the statutory definition of an operating centre should be revised to give effect to the original intention of controlling its environmental impact.This change in statute law is urged to overturn case law established by a tribunal which, ironically enough, bends over backwards to avoid setting precedents.
This recalls the infamous Enston decision in the midthirties by the original Road and Rail Appeal Tribunal under the presidency of Rowand Harker, KC sand one of whose members was E. S. Shrapnell-Smith, the first editor of CM).
The tribunal ruled that a newcomer to road haulage must prove not only that there were persons ready and willing to employ him but that nobody else was capable of providing the proposed service..The edict, handed down to protect the railways, remained in force for 30 years and an Act of Parliament was needed to cancel it.
Parliament should now be given a chance to say whether it intended what I think it meant in . the provisions on operating centres or what the Transport Tribunal believes the words of the Transport Act require.