Group Not Proposing to Evade 25-mile Limit
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pUBLICIT Y given by the Daily Express" last week to the registration of Potteries Independent Road Transport, Ltd., and references to the possible continuation of the transport of goods by free hauliers from the Potteries to Merseyside after February 1, have led many members of the public to believe that the 25-mile limit can be evaded by splitting trunk hauls. In fact, there is no intention of using relays of vehicles, each operating within a 25-mile radius, to do long-distanCe
haulage. .
Mr. E. B. Ellis, chairman of the Potteries group, told "The Commercial Motor" that the new company was a development of the West Midlands grouping 'plan, and that the example of Birmingham Road Haulage, 'Ltd., the first independent group in the Midlands and the largest in the country, would be closely followed when trading was started: By arrangement with Macclesfield and District Transport and Trading Co., Ltd., road haulage traffic to ports would be given to concerns with interMediate bases.
In a subsequent interview, Mr. Harry . Bedworth, chairman of Birmingham Road Haulage, Ltd., welcomed the extension of grouping facilities in the north, and said that the runs from the Potteries to the ports by hauliers in the Macclesfield group with appropriately situated operating centres would be typical of those .planned by . his own group.. .
• "For example," he said, ," when it becomes necessary, tO send goods from 'Birmingham to Leicester, a haulier in the Leicester area will be aired to do sthe job, and he will be able to collect an deliver without. moving outside his 25-mile limit. Similarly, BirminghamWorcester traffic will be handled by hauliers in the Kidderminster area, and goods for Banbury will be collected in Birmingham by concerns in the Stratford-on-Avon district. In other words, the effective radius for free-enterprise delivery from Birmingham will be 50 miles, even if none of our vehicles is eventually permitted to undertake longdistance transport.
"The port traffic from the Potteries is important, but it is only one of the facilities which grouping will encourage within the confines of legitimate trading."