Licence May Be Suspended
Page 36
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STRONG comments on the unsatisfactoryfactory position in which Licensing Authorities were situated with regard to motor vehicles licensed in place of horses were made by Mr. W. Chamberlain, North Western Licensing Authority, at Liverpool. Ile was dealing with an application by Messrs. W. R. Rimmer and Sons, 42, Hankin Street, Liverpool, for a variation of an A licence to substitute a 2i-ton tipping vehicle for an existing vehicle, which was not suited to the work on which they were mainly engaged.
Replying to Mr. G. H. P. Beames, for the railways, Mr. Rimmer agreed that he was granted a licence for motor vehicles on the undertaking that he would abandon his horses. Counsel suggested that, instead of discarding the horses, the applicant had simply transferred them to his wife's name, but the witness denied this, remarking that his wife had always owned horses. Mr. Chamberlain also took the former view.
The applicant said that the type of work on which his firm was engaged could not be done by motor vehicles, so they had to go back to horses.
Mr. Chamberlain: "There VMS certain. work for a building contractor carried on by Messrs. Rimmer and Sons. He persuaded me to grant a licence for a motor vehicle in substitution for two horses and I was given to understand that this vehicle would carry out the work formerly done by the horses. What he does is to sell them to his wife and she does the work for which I have granted him a licence! Scandalous!
Mr. Deames suggested that it was a suitable case for putting into effect Section 13 (3) of the 1933 Act, dealing with the suspension of licences, Mr. Chamberlain: "I am going to refuse this application, because I have not sufficient evidence of need, apart from any other factor that may have arisen in this case. But I may decide to act under the section referred to."