STATE ROAD SERVICES

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23494, 24 November 1941, Page 8

STATE ROAD SERVICES

Sir,—On Wednesday the Railway Department will apply to the No. 3 Licensing Authority for renewal of a licence to run road passenger buses between Christchurch and Timaru; and probably there will be another applica. tion in the south covering the Timaru. Dunedin run. At present two trips daily are run between Christchurch and Timaru, and I am informed that ijfcfflfc. trips daily are run between TiHfVtf and paralleling the WB/service. Now, when this same rotffl service' was operated by private enterprise, the Railway Department strongly opposed the granting of the licence, insisting that trains amply served the route Christchurch-Timaru-Dunedin. In fact according to the Railway Department at the time—and this was before the war and the shortage of petrol —there was absolutely no need for this ' road service. This, if correct then, must be more so now. At present we are urged to save petrol and to organise' traffic to avoid the duplicating of seryices. Restrictions on goods operators prevent their operating more than 30 miles from their base. Petrol licences have been cut to the bone. Now, in the name of common sense, reinforced by the Government's policy against duplicate running and by the Railway Department's own past evidence that this road service is unnecessary, I express the hope that the Licensing Authority will do as it has been done with many private operators, and suspend the licence until the end of the war. Anything else will, I consider, be a pub-, lie injustice.—Yours, etc., .303. November 22, 1941.