Minister Restores Fares on Appeal
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IN appeal decisions announced last I week, the Minister of Transport upheld the appellant's contention that there was no evidence on which the West Midland Licensing Authority could reach the conclusion that a flatrate contribution paid to their employers by all the passengers on works express services between Worcester and Kempsey and Norton was unreasonable to the employers, the employees or the general public.
The Minister granted the appeals of Mr. L. J. Aston, Church Street, Kempsey, against the Licensing Authority's attachment of a condition relating to fares when authorizing him to run the services to the Norton works of the Morgan Crucible Co., Ltd.
Sir Maurice Holmes, a Ministry of Transport inspector, who heard the appeals in Birmingham on March 15, recommended " reluctantly " that they be dismissed.
Mr. J. Foley-Egginton, for Mr. Aston, said the Morgan Crucible Co. paid his client an agreed sum for the carriage of their workpeople and recovered a flat rate from those who used the service. It provided for a payment of 3s. a head,
irrespective of the distance carried, and no exception had ever been taken to it by either side.
In arbitrarily introducing lower fares in the case of three picking-up points, he said, the Licensing Authority's action was objectionable because the service was of a semi-private character, and the Authority had no right to interfere.
There was nothing in Section 72 (4)(a) of the Road Traffic Act, 1930 (which did not justify the Licensing Authority in treating as a fare a deduction from
wages of a sum agreed between an employer and his employees] which required a Licensing Authority to apply a mileage criterion in taking steps to secure that fares should not be unreasonable.
The Authority had not attempted to relate the fares to the distance travelled, but had picked on the three lowest fare stages and reduced the charges for those.
The Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Co., Ltd., supported Mr. Foley-Egginton's submission.
In his decision, the Minister stated that he did not consider that the reduction of the contributions was necessary to secure that "the fares should not be unreasonable," having regard to the fact that the remuneration of the holder of the road service licence was a fixed sum not affected by the contributions paid by the employees to their employers.
An Order requiring the Licensing Authority to amend the conditions attached to the licences, so as to provide for a fare of 3s. a week for all fare stages, was made by the Minister