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Illegal Party Work to Continent as Basis of Application

28th September 1956
Page 68
Page 68, 28th September 1956 — Illegal Party Work to Continent as Basis of Application
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

A MORECAMBE company who, last ri week, applied to the North Western Licensing Authority for permission to run new Continental tours, were • said to have been running irregular private parties to the Continent since 1952, and had been prosecuted last year. The applicants were R. H. Harrison (Morecambe), Ltd.

Mr. H. Backhouse, objecting for James Smith (Wigan), Ltd., and Morecambe Motors (Silver Grey), Ltd., said the applicants were simply asking for their operations to be legalized. If licences could be obtained on that basis it would be an indticement to irregularity.

Mr. C. R. Dean, for Harrison's, said they specialized in out-of-season extended tours to serve the business people of Morecambe, who found it impossible to take their holidays at any other time. Since March last, they had had 93 inquiries from hotel keepers for Continental tours.

The application was for three tours, in October only, one of 14 days' duration to the French and Italian Rivieras, one of 15 days to Paris and Rome, and one of 14 days to Paris and Barcelona. Smith's had no picking-up point nearer than Preston, and the only local operator of Continental tours, Florence Motors, Ltd., had withdrawn their objection. Mr. Backhouse submitted that Smith's, who had seven departures on Continental tours every week throughout the season, had arranged a special programme in October this year of six hotel-keepers' tours from Blackpool and Morecambe at reduced prices.

This case was of great importance to them. Nearly 4,000 people were carried. to the Continent each season, entailing vast organization and expense. Irregular. private-party operations at cut rates had developed dangerously in Morecambe. Blackpool and other places.

Harrison's had built up this irregular business since 1952. They were refused. a licence in 1954, the Licensing Authority then saying that if anyone should be licensed it was Smith's,

When Smith's applied for a picking-. up point at Morecambe it was refused because they could not prove need, but that season Harrison's ran two private parties with 66 passengers. They were now suggesting that because they had built an illegal business they should be allowed to carry it on.

There were originally eight objectors to the application, added Mr. Back. house, and it was strange that the others had withdrawn. The applicants had admitted that they had agreed with Florence Motors not to apply for any extension in the future if the licence was granted, nor to use it as the means for objecting to any Florence application. That was a reckless way of getting rid of objectors.

Mr. F. Webster, managing director of Smith's and Morecambe Motors, said that if the Licensing Authority thought. fit he was willing to apply for an express service from Morecambe to Wigan or Preston by Morecambe Motors.

Mr. F. Williamson, chairman, deferred: decision to study the .transcript of the 1954 hearing and until Smith's application for a feeder service to .Preston from Morecambe had been heard......


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