B.R.S. .Delays Alleged: "Great Pressure" Excuse
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IN the House of Commons, last week. Mr. Cyril Osborne (Cons., Louth) raised on the adjournment the alleged inefficiency in certain respects of British Road Services. He gave three examples in which he declared B.R.S. had broken down in a most remarkable way.
One concerned a consignment of transformer parts dispatched from Leicester on October 28 and delivered at their destination at Farnborough on November 9. A similar consignment from Leicester to Farnborough was discovered at Surbiton a week later, and was delivered 'on the same day. A third parcel from Leicester to Chessington, . Surrey. was dispatched on October 13 and had not arrived by November 10.
• Mr. Osborne mentioned railway delays to which he had been subjected and questioned whether the British Transport Commission were getting the best type of labour they could. He wondered whether the Government ought to examine the Whole of the nationalized industries to ascertain whether the wages paid were too low and whether it would be possible to provide a better service with fewer men who were paid better wages.
Replying, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry, of Transport, Mr. John Hay, said that, in common with other haulage concerns, B.R.S. (Parcels), Ltd., were working under a great pressure of traffic in the autumn.
During that period of four weeks they had carried 250,000 more packages than in the corresponding period of 1958. Delays at depots were almost inevitable. In the last case quoted by Mr. Osborne, the consignment for Farnborough was lost because its label had become detached. It had subsequently been found in the depot lost-property section. . Mr. Hay added that Parliament had set up machinery in the transport users' consultative committees to deal with complaints which could not be settled by the Commission. He hoped that the existence of the committees would be made more widely known to the public, 250,000 LAND-ROVERS MADE WHILST it had taken 11 years to proVV duce the first 250,000 Land-Rovers, present production rates indicated that the half-million mark would be reached in another six years. Mr. G. Lloyd Dixon, executive sales director of the Rover Co., Ltd., stated this last week when the 250,000th Land-Rover came off the production line.
Export sales had claimed 74 per cent. of the production and earned more than £87m., he added.
B.O.A.C. RADIO VANS
V0 vans used by the Chelsea cargo depot of the British Overseas Airways Corporation have been equipped with two-way radio. Drivers can be given instructions to make collections en route.