Wraggs to ditches
Page 18
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• H Wragg Transport's bid for two additional vehicles and trailers has been turned down by West Midlands Licencing Authority, John Mervyn Pugh on the grounds that the access roads to the operating centre, which the company has occupied for 25 years, are unsuitable.
The company, of Pinder Oaks, Little Hereford near Ludlow, currently holds an international licence for eight vehicles and trailers. Its application for additional vehicles and trailers was opposed by Hereford & Worcester County Council and .Leominster District Council, and there was a petition from the residents of Pinders Oak.
For the company, Michael Carless said one of the additional vehicles was required to give the company a margin to hire a vehicle in case of breakdown. The other vehicle would be used on a contract in Exeter and it would return to base only at the weekend. He argued that the application ought not to make any difference to the residents.
Ian Slater, deputy chief planning officer of Leominster, maintained that the operating centre was environmentally unsuitable because of the nature of the surrounding highways and to a lesser extent, of the site itself.
It was serviced entirely by unclassified and C class roads and the nearest double track road was 2.5 kilometres away. The council was concerned about the effect on the property fronting the roads concerned.
Philip Bedford, for the residents, said they were concerned about the safety of children making their way to and from the school buses in the area. One lorry had gone through a hedge, two had gone into ditches and a fourth had collided with a car. There had been an incident where a lorry forced a car to reverse nearly 150m in a snowstorm at night driving bumper-to-bumper with its headlights full on.
Carless said he was surprised the local authorities had not raised these objections when the licence was renewed in 1984 and subsequently varied.
Refusing the application, Mervyn Pugh said there was nothing he could do about the existing vehicles. He concluded, however, that the site was as big as it ought ever to be.
He was satisfied that if he authorised the increase it would have an adverse effect on the environmental conditions in the area.