C-licensees Resist Restriction
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A SUGGESTION by Mr. Ernest 1-1, Davies, M.P., Labour's front-bench spokesman on transport matters, that it would be necessary to restrict C licences, is answered by Mr. F. D. Fitz-Gerald, national secretary of the Traders' Road Transport Association, in the Association's monthly bulletin.
Mr. Fitz-GeTald says that the compulsory transfer of goods from traders' own vehicles to public transport would mean the substitution of the less efficient for the more efficient. Mr. Davies had not explained how his proposal would benefit the country. Any advantage to the railways would not outweigh the aggregate loss of trade and industry.
He adds, however, that the T.R.T.A. have always been strong supporters of the railways and of public transport generally.. If the modernization scheme enabled the railways to offer service Which was as efficient as could be Obtained from C-licence transport, trade and industry would be happy to transfer theirtraffic voluntarily. "The emphasis
is on voluntarily '," he says, " for restriction will solve nothing and lose a great deal."
DRIVING PEOPLE OFF BUSES IF the bus company were forced to use I the new £5.000 Chopwell bus station, built by Blaydon Urban council, passengers would have to walk another 386 yards. Mr. John H. Richardson, traffic manager of the Northern General Transport Co., Ltd., explained this to the Northern Traffic Commissioners at Durham last Friday and added: "This is just the sort of thing that is driving people off the buses," Northern General were applying for renewal of their existing stage carriage licence—and the urban council objected on the ground that buses should in future use the new bus station. , The council also claimed that the present stopping place was dangerous. Mr. Richardson pointed out that it had been used for many years without accident.
Decision will be given when the Commissioners have inspected the new site and the existing stop.