THE CENTRAL QUESTION
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1X/HA1 should we do about ()
licensing? That question is currently exercising officials in the Department of Transport. At the moment they .ire considering the submissions of the Frciglit Transport Association iiid the Road I laulage Association about the first year's operation of the eiiviroiiinental controls oVcr Operaring centres. But the Department may also he taking a more fundamental look at the system.
Last May I described the Geddes Report, published 20 years earlier. This had reComilielided replacing carriers' licensing with a system ll of permits to ply. .fliese wolllti have been issued virtually on deznand. 1 wondered whether such a simple system might not prove more effective dill) the present complicated and time-consuming 0lieensing system. (Later this month die mock traffic court at die Fleet Management Conference will remind participants just how complicated it can be.) It now appears that the [)ET) is asking itself the same question. The pro-rail group Transport 21100 has sonic industrious moles inside No 2 Marsham Street — remember the Peeler Memorandum, leaked to them in 1.978? The organisation maintains in its latest bulletin that the current review is not just concur-led with the nuts and bolts of the environmental provisions. It claims that it is ''designed to exempt small hauliers partially, or preferably wholly, from 0-licensing".
Transport 2000 seems to think that the industry would welcome such a
move. I. doubt this. In CBI last year RHA director-general Freddie Plaskett wrote that "goods arc increasingly being carried on spec by a ragbag of fringe and cowboy
operators". So we may yet see the unlikely spectacle of the RHA and Transport 2000 as allies!
However, the environmental provisions hy themselves are giving the DTp enough headaches. Perhaps the worst is the difference between, on the one hand, the rights of applicants for licences and, on the other, the rights of those making representations on environmental grounds against those applications. At present a representer who loses in the Traffic Court has reached the end of the road; he has no
right of appeal. On the other hand if the representer wins before the Licensing Authority the applicant for a licence can appeal to the Transport Tribunal.
The RI IA opposes giving representers rights of appeal on die grounds that it "would undoubtedly increase delays and costs-. I imagine that the HA agrees, though its. recent press release does not locution the point. And certainly it would he a serious step, given the determination of snene opponents. It would effectively extend to everyone living in the vicinity of a lorry operating centre the right of formal objection at present confined to a hillited list of trade associations, trade unimis. local
authorities and police forces. ()l course, the trade associations are against that. Equally obviously, the
environmentalist organisations are for it. Over a year ago I ransport 200n wrote to the Council on Tribunals drawing attention to the discrepancy. The council acts as a watchdog over all specialist tribunals; 1 wrote in some detail about Its work two years ago (Cld, October 1, 1983). Its remit is to ensure that the greater informality of bodies like traffic courts does not lead to injustice.
After a very long delay, during which, no doubt, there were discussions between the council .ind the DTp, the council replied. kir the time being it seemed content to accept Lynda Chalker's promise to Roger Moate, MP, that "if there appears to be a need to extend the right of appeal I will consider doing so".
So in putting up recommendations to Nicholas Ridley the DTp will have to ask: "Is the Secretary of State prepared to defend continuing discriminating in favour of the haulier?"' This is the sort of political decision on which civil servants do not normally offer advice to Ministers. But the officials will no doubt point to the danger that the Council on Tribunals might publicly condemn the position if discrimination continued, and that Ridley would risk a humiliating public climb-down if that happened.
However, the civil servants will probably suggest a compromise. At present not only have representers no right of appeal, they do not even have a
right to he informed that an appeal has been lodged by all applicant whom they have defeated before the Licensing Authority. That seems particularly onesided, and i shall he surprised if is liot changed as a result or the review. Indeed, perhaps the trade associations should put the suggestion forward. It would be unlikely to harm operators, and it would at least help to head off pressure for the much more damaging step of extending the right of appeal.
Nicholas Ridley will probably seize eagerly on another point made by the FTA. Reiterating irs opposition to the principle of environmental controls, the association says: "The question of whether an operating centre is acceptable to the community in which it is located is largely a planning issue-. It would he a fine contribution to Lord Young's "lifting the burden" exercise if Ridley could sweep away the new controls by reliance on the planning system.
Sir Arthur Armitage had the same idea. Referring to the environmental effects of lorries, he said in paragraph 271 of his report: "IC the planning system were able to deal with this clear nuisance there would he no need to use the licensing system. But,he concluded bluntly, "it cannot." Nothing has happened to the planning system since Armitage reported in I980 to make it easy for Ridley to take a different view.
It seems almost certain, however, that he will take steps to deal with the theoretical danger that an operator might get planning permission for a new centre, and spend thousands of pounds developing it, only to have his 0-licence application refused or restricted on environmental grounds. But that, and sonic easing of the advertising requirement, seems to he all that the industry will get out of the review.
by Keith Vincent