Minister Disagrees With Inspector
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r-IN appeal, the Minister of Transport has rejected a
recommendation from his inspector, Sir Maurice Holmes, that coach facilities from Bracknell to coastal resorts should be shared between Smith's Luxury Coaches (Reading), Ltd., 20 Mill Lane, Reading, and W. F. Carter and Sons, Ltd., 119 King Street, Maidenhead.
The decision arose out of appeals by W. F. Carter against the decision of the South Eastern Traffic CornmisilOners to grant licences to Smith's for express services between Bracknell and Weymouth, and between Reading, • Littlehanipton and Southsea, and refusing express services to Carters, who had put in a competing application. Smith's had recently acquired the excursion licence of Cody Coaches, Ltd., and intended to develop the licence to the full.
Sir Maurice stated that the need for additional facilities arose from the prospective increase of the population of Bracknell New Town. In such circumstances the policy of the Traffic Commissioners was to share out the resultant week-end traffic among local operators who could show reasonable grounds for
participating in it. The "existingoperator' principle had little, if any, validity in the present case.
The inspector quoted a past decision by the Minister which stated: " . . . he cannot agree . . that the grant of the licences to the purchaser for services which amounted in essence to a 'substantial transformation of the services actually operated by the vendor could be justified in the public interest without proof of need."
It would be difficult, Sir Maurice Went on, to imagine a more complete transformation of a service than that resulting from the acquisition by Smith's of the excursion licences of Cody Coaches, Ltd.
Carters' case was damnified because they had approved Smith's acquisition of Cody's licence in circumstances which ran counter to the Minister's expressed views. In these circumstances, . Sir Maurice did not think that the Commissioners' decisions could be allowed to stand and suggested that the traffic facilities should be shared. In reply, the Minister rejected the inspector's conclusion that the Commissioners' decisions should be overruled because they should haVe reduced the scope of the excursion licence in question when granting it to Smith's as successors to Cody's.
He pointed out that the Commissioners' decision in respect of the excursion licence was not the subject of appeal. He saw no other sufficient grounds for differing from the Commissioners' conclusion that the grant to Smith's would provide express services for Bracknell with less duplication with other services.
The appeals were dismissed.
U.N. TRANSPORT MEETINGS THE working party on main inter1 national traffic arteries of the inland transport committee of the United Nations will meet in Geneva from September 12-13. The committee's subcommittee on road transport will meet there from September 16-20.