Taxi service on the cheap
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• Mr Archibald Fletcher, of Barrhead, applied unsuccessfully at Glasgow this week for authority to operate an express service between a housing area of Barrhead and a local school, using a route operated also by Western SMT Co Ltd and McGill's Bus Service of Paisley. He admitted a conviction on October 20 1971 for driving a minibus without a psv licence and using a vehicle for hire or reward without a licence and of continuing to do so until Easter after an application for approval made on January 29. It was contended by the objectors that the applicant did not seem to be either a knowledgeable or suitable person to receive a grant but the court asked that evidence be fully provided.
Mr Fletcher conducted his own case and said that parents of children aged between five and seven had asked him to provide a service to take them to school. He claimed that a parents' association made the hire, paid his wife who acted as conductress and
was herself a member of the association and that she paid him £15 a week for the operation of the service which involved two runs each way each schoolday.
Mr A. B. Birnie, chairman of the Scottish Commissioners, said Fletcher had been very shortsighted and negligent on his own admission having continued to operate a bus until Easter after making application for its legal use in January. Fletcher also admitted running another bus to another school over the period, again on the assumption of private hiring.
Mr J. F. Gallic, for McGill's, suggested that Fletcher had known he was in breach and had come to wipe the slate clean.
The application was supported by a petition from the parents and Baillie McCready of Barrhead town council. The latter indicated that the council was fully in support of the proposed service and claimed that they had been unable to get satisfactory service from either Western or McGill. The objectors contended that tht applicant had no knowledge of costing oi operating express services and that he was virtually providing these parents with a tax service on the cheap.
Refusing the application, Mr A. B. Birnie chairman, said that they would not go so fai as the objectors in deciding what weight ol evidence of need would be necessary, bui they certainly did need a volume o: evidence in support of a claim. They had tc look at the question of granting a licence tc an operator who appeared to have beer operating ip a way that might well be illega and who had already been convicted in tht short time he had been working; that let) them with a feeling of ignorance anc irresponsibility.
There was also the need that the existing operator should be enabled to keep services going in a period of declining public demand. They did not think there was sufficient evidence of demand to outweiglthese two factors taken together. They hac been told that there was need for saft transport but there had been no accidents since 1966 when the school opened; tht inconvenience to mothers was not strong enough to justify a grant. He instructed his staff to maintain a watch on the Fletchei operations in his own interest.