Buffet Coach is a Goods Vehicle!
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I F. a coach be equipped with a buffet, does this make it a goods vehicle for the purposes of taxation? Club Coaches, Ltd., Lower Regent Street, London, S.W.1, has been informed by the London County Council that this is so.
The coach in question was specially built to cater for American tourists, and has beeü in operation for the past 15 months. An Albion 32-seater passenger chassis forms the basis, but to provide maximum comfort the. body is built to accommodate only 18 passengers.
At the rear end, where normally there would be seating for five, there is an in-built buffet. The operator has recently been informed that "as this vehicle has been adapted and is used for the conveyance of goods or burden" it becomes liable to pay the tax appropriate to its unladen weight as a goods vehicle. The more important point, of course, is that, presumably, it would be subject to the 20 m.p.h. speed limit.
"The Commercial Motor was informed by the operator that a compromise is likely, the condition being that the buffet be made portable instead of, as now, being a part of the body.