Letters and Witnesses " Ignored " by L.A.
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• THE Metropolitan Deputy Licensing I Authority not only ignored letters produced in support of an application, but he also. ignored eight customer witnesses, the Transport Tribunal were told by Mr. C. R. Beddington, who opened an appeal before them by J. Jacques and Sons, Ltd., of Tufnell Park, London, on Tuesday. The appeal was against the refusal by the Deputy, Authority to grant Jacques two additional A-licensed vehicles.
Outlining the appellants' case, Mr. Beddington said: "The inquiry was marred by a good deal 'of personal feeling between Mr. Jacques and the objectors. which would have been better left out."
The application, he said, was set against the background of the heavy haulage industry and was concerned with the carriage of heavy plant and machinery for the civil engineering, road making and building industries. An important aspect brought out in the evidence was that in the last year or two those industries had been stimulated to such an extent that there had been an unprecedented increase in the demand for vehicles to transport the equipment employed.
It was "quite extraordinary" that the Authority should not have paid any attention to this. and the increase in the business of the appellants.
Mr. Beddington said that Mr. Jacques had once been employed by one of the objectors. He had been in charge of the heavy haulage department where he had acquired a thorough knowledge of the industry, After " trouble " with his employers he left and joined in his family's haulage business, developing it, eventually. into a heavy haulage concern.
" It is a comparatively limited world and it is not unnatural that some of the objectors' business followed him," continued Mr. Beddington. Mr. Jacques had circularized all the people he knew in the industry and no doubt attracted business in that way—a perfectly legitimate way of building up the goodwill of a business. This was not, as suggested by the objectors, against public interest and "totally unfair." Quite clearly it was in the public. interest.
Mr. J. M. Timmons. for the B.T.C. (respondents) said that the application had been based on a need to supply a "taxi service." with vehicles expected to be available at an hour's notice. He asked the Tribunal to say that the Deputy Authority had correctly approached the matter and was perfectly justified in refusing the application.
The appeal was adjourned until April 10, when the case for the nine independent respondents will he heard.