The Excursion and Tours Battle Begins
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THERE was quite a pre-war atmos phere when several applications for authority to operate motor-coach excursions and tours were heard at .a public sitting, which the North-eastern Regional Transport Commissioner, Major F. S. Eastwood, held in Leeds, on August 29. All the applications met with opposition, both from road and railway interests, and a number of lawyers appeared for the parties concerned.
Application for the sanctioning of a block of proposed excursions from Cawood, six miles from Selby, was made by Mr. J. W. S. Moore, of Cawood. The objectors were J. Bullock and Sons (1928), Ltd., of Wakefield, and the L.M.S. For the applicant, the submission was made that the proposed facilities were justified by the complete absence of coach excursions and tours originating from Cawood, coupled with traffic pressure on the stage-carriage services to Selby, where excursions and tout. facilities were available.
In opposition to the application, the point was made that stage-carriage services, from Cawood, ran at half-hourly intervals to Selby. It was stated that Mr. Moore made a similar application in 1938, against which Bullock and Sons (1928), Ltd., lodged an objection, but eventually he withdrew it. The Commissioner dismissed the application.
Another unsucces6ful application was that by Cooper Brothers (Wakefield), Ltd., for authority to operate a series of excursions and tours from Wakefield, chiefly to Blackpool, Bridlington and Scarborough. There were objections by the West Riding Automobile Co., Ltd., of Wakefield, J. Bullock and Sons (1928), Ltd.. of Wakefield, and the L.M.S. and L.N.E.R. companies: In explanation of the surrender of its excursions and tours licence in 1938, the applicant pleaded that it had inadvertently made a total surrender of the licence, whereas its intention was only to relinquish the sanction to operate excursions to race meetings. It, therefore, asked to be treated as if it was a holder of an excursions and tours licence in 1939. On the evidence, however, the Commissioner found that the plea of inadvertence was unjustified.
A submission made for the opposition was that, in some respects, the applicant was asking for more operational scope than it had before the surrender of its licence in 1938.
An application by Messrs, J. Boddy and Son, of Filey, for permission to operate .excursions and tours from within Butlin's Holiday Camp, near Filey, met with opposition from East Yorkshire Motor Services, Ltd., to which the Commissioner recently granted a short-term permit allowing it to provide such facilities. There were also objections from United Automobile Services, Ltd.. and the L.N.E.R.
For the applicants, it was pointed out that they were the nearest operators to Butlin's Camp, and that, before the war, they had been providing excursions and tours from Filey for about 20 years. They stressed that the existing stage-carriage facilities between Filey and Butlin's Camp, 21miles away, were inadequate and that 40 per cent.. of the passengers being carried from their excursions and tours starting point, in Filey, were from the camp.
The Commissioner said that could not give applicants sanction to operate from private property unless he had proof that the owners of the property were agreeable to such operation. He would adjourn the hearing to give the applicants an' opportunity of providing evidence of Messrs. Butlin's consent