Dover Agreement to be Renewed
Page 47
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TERMS of a proposed, new agreement
for the continued operation by the company of stage services in Dover have been negotiated with the corporalion by the East Kent Road Car Co., Ltd. The chairman, Mr. R. P. Beddow, made this announcement at the company's annual meeting at Canterbury last week.
The company had operated the services since January I, 1937, under an agreement which was to expire early in 1958. The proposed new agreement would, they believed, protect fairly the interests of both parties. Detailed drafting of several clauses had still to be settled.
Mr. Beddow said that 40 new singledeck buses, 10 of them 41-seaters designed for one-man operation, had replaced older vehicles in the fleet during the year. East Kent had been running a small number of one-man 20-seaters for many years, and these had enabled them to keep down the losses which were unavoidable on sparsely populated routes.
They hoped that the new one-man buses would enable them to reduce losses on routes on which the average loadings were small, but where the traffic peaks were beyond the capacity of 20-seaters.
In less than a year, two wage increases had raised the wages bill at the rate of £145,000 a year. The wage increase that became effective in January last forced them to apply for higher fares, and after opposition by more than 20 local authorities their applicatidn was granted. The latest pay increase, coupled with rises in other costs, would necessitate a further advance in fares.
Announcing that the St. George's Lane bus station in Canterbury should come into use early in 1956, Mr. Beddow said their policy was to provide such stations only where they were indispensable or brought some advantage to the public. Plans founded on other concepts could not be justified.