The Heart of the matter
Page 23
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JUDGMENT has been reserved by the West Midlands Traffic Commissioners in the battle over stage services in Warwickshire between George Day's Heart of England companies and the West Midlands PTE (CM May 18) Heart of England Services and Heart of England Tours are competing with the PTE for authority to run services in an area that was originally served by the now defunct Warwickshire Motors, and also run by Mr Day under contract to the PTE.
Heart of England was granted licences in 1983 but ceased operating the services because of what Mr Day described as predatory competition by the PTE.
Mr Day said he wanted a completely free hand to be able to develop services in the area. If the PTE was to conti nue to operate, he was not prepared to run.
His companies were private companies operating on private funds. The PIE had access to the rate fund which it seemed able to dig into whenever it wanted.
He maintained that if the PTE figures had included the true cost of operating rather than costing on a marginal basis, the proposed PTE services would show a massive loss of over £70,000.
The Transport Secretary had indicated that it was against the public interest for a subsidised operator to provide a service at a loss, when a private operator was prepared to provide it at no cost to the county council.
He had every confidence that if licences were granted to his companies, he could show a profit on the operation.