E. Counties Compensation Figures Refused
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LORD WISE asked without success last week for an estimate of the amount of the annual compensation—if any--paid to the Eastern Counties Omnibus Co. because of the alteration of its services caused by the closing of railway stations and lines in Norfolk. When he raised the matter in the Lords he was told by Lord Lindgren, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, that payment by the Railways Board to another party came within the sphere of management, and he could not. therefore, give an estimate.
But Lord Wise persisted: if compensation should be paid, what would be its
basis? Would it be present-day figures, or figures given before the rail closures? He could not give the basis for the compensation, replied Lord Lindgren. That was a mattes of negotiations between the Railways Board and the bus company. But the Railways Board stated in its 1963 report that the total amount of compensation the railways paid during 1963 to bus companies was £92,600.
As to the particular lines in which Lord Wise appeared to be interested, for Dereham-Wells next the Sea the compensation was £6,000 a year, and for North Walsham-Mundesley on Sea it was £2,200 a year.