BY WATER OR ROAD?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1932, Page 14

BY WATER OR ROAD?

TRANSPORT FOR SETTLERS. LICENSING AUTHORITY'S PRINCIPLES. PROTECTION" WHERE JUSTIFIED. "We don't want to see the water service abandoned and a lot of people left stranded to suit tlie convenience of a few in one section of the district," observed Mr. J. A. C. Allum, chairman of the No. 2 Licensing Authority, when an application from the proprietors of the Birkenhead-Albany bus service to run a feeder service to Greenhithe and Cuthill was being considered. The applicants, Messrs. Ingham and Donahoe, asked permission to run the feeder service twice weekly to meet the convenience of a number of people who had to walk as much as three miles to the present terminus at Albany. Opposition to the application, on the ground that it would seriously affect the service he ran in the upper reaches of the harbour, was expressed by R. H. Meynell. He stated that for eight years he had run a daily service which provided transport for settlers and school children, and the settlers' produce, cream and fruit. The concession to the bus company, he said, would enable that company to reap the benefit of the service ho had worked up over a number of years and might compel him to abandon it. Mr. Allum: What would be the result if your service ceased? The Objector: The settlors higher up the harbour would be isolated. In announcing that the application was declined, the chairman mentioned that in cases like this the authority took into consideration the needs of the district as a whole, the adequacy of the existing transport and tho question whether the latter would bo prejtulically affected. The authority was of the opinion that such was the case in the matter before them. If there appeared to lie nnv considerable demand 011 the part of tiie people at Cuthill for a service the applicant could apply for a variation of the Albany service. "We don't favour experimental applications. We like to be satisfied that they have a chance of reasonable success," added Mr. Allum, by way of general information.