Beware of Normal User
Page 70
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Renewal Application Forms Must be Completed Carefully: Dangers of Changing Traffic
AHAULIER who, in tilling in an application form for the renewal, without modification, of an A licence, merely copies the normal-user conditions from the existing licence without considering whether there has been any substantial change in traffic, is inviting objections. Even more important, complications may ensue if the nature of the business has been changed during the currency of the licence.
These two points were emphasized last Friday by Mr. G. Duncan Jewel, of The Commercial Motor, in an address to a special joint meeting of the CheshireRintshire and Wrexham Sub-areas or the Road Haulage Association at Mold.
In a recent appeal, said Mr. Jewell, the Transport Tribunal had upheld a decision or the South Wales Licensing Authority that because Mr. T. Tong, a Neath haulier, had changed the charaCter of his business, he must apply for a new A licence and produce evidence of need. [The appeal was reported in The Commercial Motor on November 15.1 As a further illustration or the dangers attending a cavalier approach to.the description of normal user, the case of Mr. C. A. HuErne (The Commercial Motor, October. 25) was quoted. Mr. Huline applied to the North Western Deputy Licensing Authority to add pit props to the conditions of his B licence.
Business Changed
Evidence was given that Mr. HuIme's two A-licence vehicles had for some years been engaged primarily on hauling pit props. It was discovered, however, that in 1948, 1952 and again this year, Mr. FluIme had signed the form for the renewal of his A licences, but had made no mention of pit props, which were now stated to be his main work. The nature of the business had been substantially changed. As a consequence, the application had to be withdrawn.
"There is now the possibility of action under Section 9 (4) of the 1953 Act for making a false declaration of intention, and Mr. Hulme also faces the probability of being treated as a newcomer at his next application for renewal," said Mr. Jewell.
" APart from these considerations," he continued, "the so-called renewal of your licence is officially regarded as an application for a new licence in continuation of an expiring one, and every five years the Licensing Authority is empowered to review the position. Unless the application form GV1A is completed and sent in at the proper time the licence' automatically expires, and every renewal application has to be published in Applications and Decisions and faces possible objections, so it is not a matter to be treated casually.
"The description of normal user is designed as a yardstick to assist the Licensing Authority to assess the require 1-26 merits of trade and industry in relation to transport, and to prevent an excess of vehicles in any.particular area.
What constitutes a material change in a haulier's business is a question of fact to be decided in each individual case, but if you change from purely local to longdistance work, introduce a new trunk service, enter the field of specialized traffic or change your main work to a commodity not specified on your normal user, you would be well advised to produce evidence of the kind required to establish a prima facie case of need, when applying for renewal.
" With reference to the question of a declared normal user, no one—not even the Licensing Authority—can alter the description given on your application form, without your consent. He can, however, ask for evidence to support it and either grant or refuse the application until it is amended in accordance with the evidence. Also, under the powers conferred by Section 9 (4), the Licensing Authority can consider suspension or revocation if a false statement is made, or any statement of intention or expecta-, Lion is not fulfilled.
"Finally, there is the question of the special A licence. Hauliers who already hold public A licences and operate vehicles under special A, are wondering what influence their present normal user will have on that given to the special A licences when they are translated into ordinary A licences.
" The Licensing Authority will require the fullest information as to what the vehicles have been doing, arc doing, and what it is intended they should do, mid few will be able to justify "general goods, Great Britain."
"If it is the intention to add the special
A vehicles to the existing public A licence, further complications may arise. The Transport Tribunal have ruled that an A licence may be varied during its currency by adding additional vehicles with a different normal user from the rest
of the fleet. So that if the special-A vehicles have been employed on different work from those on public A, the applicant may well finish up with several normal users on the same licence.
"On the other hand, it has never been decided whether in such a case all the vehicles under the licence become cloaked with the combined normal user; or if, on renewal, separate normal users or a composite one would be required. And there is the important question whether the whole of the licence would be pot in peril under Section 9 (4) if an expectation or intention in relation to one of the normal risers was not fulfilled.
Vehicles Must be Separated
" Difficulties would also arise if it was desired to interchange vehicles with different normal users. In practice, this type of grant, of which there have been several in the north-west, would probably mean that such vehicles would have to be kept separate. On renewal, and at any application for additional vehicles. both the Licensing Authority and any objectors would ask to see separate figures of operation_ "The answer—although this May arouse more opposition—seems to be to apply for a new A licence when seeking to transfer special-A vehicles to public A licence."
There was no legal definition of normal user, but most Licensing Authorities accepted work amounting to 70 per cent. or more of the total as representing an A-licensee's normal user. There was nothing to stop a licence holder carrying anything anywhere without infringing the law, provided it was exceptional. So long as he did not radically change the nature of his general operations without good cause, be had little to fear.