£1,200 Too Much for Hiring
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AN appeal by the British Transport Commission against the decision of the Metropolitan Licensing Authority to allow J. Buckley and Co. (Warrington), Ltd., to run an additional vehicle was dismissed by the Transport Tribunal in London last week.
Mr. C. R. Beddington, for the Commission, said that the company operated 20 lorries purchased from the Commission on a Warrington-London trunk service. It was claimed that a B licence was needed to enable the concern to operate an additional smaller lorry for collection and delivery within a 25-mile radius of London.
He submitted that the company could continue to hire a vehicle from one of their associated concerns, an independent contractor, or British Road Services. It would be uneconomic for them to have their own lorry.
For' the company, Mr. J. R. Amphlett said it was essential that the decision of the Authority should be upheld, as in the first 5i months of their existence they had spent £675 on vehicle hire.
Mr: Hubert Hull, the president, said that the mere fact that a haulier had at times to hire a vehicle had never been accepted as a sufficient reason for granting him another licence, but there came a time when a haulier could say that the extent to which he had to hire justified his having his own vehicle. On a trunk service, inparticular, there must be many occasions when a consigner was anxious at the last moment to catch a vehicle.
Referring to the £675, Mr. Hull said: "That means an annual expenditure of something over £1,200. When this state
of affairs is reached, it does seem to us to justify the granting •of a licence to a man operating a trunking service for a vehicle under his own hand."
On the lack of evidence provided by the conlpany to support their case, Mr. Hull said he ha often expressed the view that applicants were "getting looser and looser in the case they make to the Licensing Authority."