SCOTTISH CONCESSIONARY COAL APPLICATION REFUSED
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THE Scottish deputy Licensing
Authority, Mr. A. B. Birnie, sitting in Kirkcaldy last week, upheld a submission of "no case to answer' on the part of objectors to two applications by Hutchison Brothers of Dysart to add eight vehicles on B licence.
Mr. H. Hutchison, a partner, told the deputy Authority that the vehicles were needed in connection with the distribution of miners' concessionary coal. Last September he had obtained an additional contract with the National Coal Board to bag and deliver coal from Denbeath Colliery at a rate of I4s. 6d. a ton. By using more vehicles he would be able to employ only two men per vehicle, instead of four to five per vehicle as he was doing now.
When Mr. W. Fletcher, for the objectors—memhers of the Fife Tipper Association—suggested that the rate was entirely uneconomical, Mr. Hutchison said: "I am not a rich man and I would not be able to do the job if it wasn't economical."
Cost Details Pressed to give details of his costings, Mr. Hutchison said that only old vehicles were necessary for the work, and he had calculated depreciation at Is. 6d. a day. Asked about tyres, he said that he did not need to buy new tyres for the vehicles. In the two years the vehicles had been working on concessionary coal he had not purchased any. He had not taken into account repairs to vehicles.
Mr. Fletcher: "So you don't really know whether you are making any profit or not." Mr. Hutchison replied that he must be making a profit or he would have been out of business by now.
Mr. Fletcher then submitted there was no case for the objectors to answer because the applicant had not produced any figures, witnesses as to need, or even a copy of the contract.
Refusing the applications, Mr. Birnie said that the evidence was "entirely inadequate ". In so far as any existed it was highly confusing and required probing into.