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More Views on the "Report"

28th October 1932
Page 42
Page 42, 28th October 1932 — More Views on the "Report"
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

The Tramways Light Railways and Transport Association.

THIS Association considers that the general effect of the recommendations will be to increase very materially the annual payments for licence duties of all the road-using vehicles of the Association which are driven by electricity or internal-combustion engines. The increase 'suggested is so serious as already to have caused the suspension of certain new schemes, and would undoubtedly seriously undermine the financial stability of many transport undertakings now serving the public. The unfortunate effect which the mere publication of the report has had upon industry cannot be too strongly stressed. With the danger of Governmental acceptance of the proposals, it is impossible to proceed with new schemes with any confidence of their financial soundness.

The position of those tramway authorities which have abandoned their tramways and have adopted newer transport methods will not be bettered, but rendered worse.

As regards trolley-buses, the Association cannot believe that the payments already made by the undertakings do not more than pay for their use of the highway. It considers that the argument as to "community use" and "legacy from the past" values is -wrong in principle and that the former should be used as a deduction from the expenditure on the roads, also that the cost of new construction is an item which should not be included.

1316

The Municipal Tramways and Transport Association.

AT UCH interesting criticism is made of the basic annual IV/expenditure of £60,000,000, which is referred to in the report. The Association states that this must be censidered under separate heads. The Road Fund has been more than adequate to meet the grants for maintenance a class I. and class II roads, and would be, if such grants included the total costs properly chargeable against revenue (apart from capital expenditure), instead of 60 per cent. and 50 per cent respectively, which are now merged in .,the block grants under the Local Government Act, 1929. Attention is directed to the vicissitudes in recent years of that Fund. By the Finance Act of 1926, £7,000,000 was withdrawn from it and applied in relief of national taxation. In 1927 a further sum of £12,000,000 was withdrawn. In its argument on "community use" and "legacy from the past," the Conference seems to have fixed attention mainly upon trunk roads connecting town to town. These two phrases, so far as highways proper are concerned, are, generally speaking, matters of purely local concern.

The implication that the whole cost of road maintenance should be placed upon mechanized vehicles is in direct contradiction of the principle of determining the proportion of contributions by central and local revenues, respectively; as well as of that controlling Government subventions for services locally administered.


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