CARTAGE OF FAT LAMBS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27192, 9 November 1953, Page 6

CARTAGE OF FAT LAMBS

CASES TO GO BACK TO AUTHORITY

JUDGE’S DECISION ON RAILWAYS APPEAL

The Transport Appeal Authority (Judge Archer) has referred back to the No. 9 Transport Licensing Authority (Mr J. A. Bretherton) for further consideration the cases of two road transport companies’ licences. The Licensing Authority reviewed the licences of Mockett’s Motors, Ltd., and Scargill Transport, Ltd., at the request of the Minister of Railways (Mr W. S. Goosman), at Christchurch on February 24 this year, and decided to make no change in the licences. The department appealed. The review was to determine whether the companies should continue to hold rights for the carriage of fat lambs exceeding those of other operators, who were not permitted to carry fat lambs for distances of more than 50 miles in competition xyith the railways.

The Licensing Authority said in February that the case for the withdrawal of a right must be more strictly proved than that for the granting of a right. In both cases, the rights were an anomaly which he would treat as not being a precedent for the granting of any similar rights. The railways were losing revenue from the districts, •but he was not satisfied that the two licences were the cause of it. The Appeal Authority, in his decision, said it was clear that,the rights enjoyed by the respondent companies were somewhat anomalous, and that their enjoyment of the rights placed other operators in a disadvantageous position and caused loss of traffic to the railways.

The companies, because of the time they had held their licences, were entitled to retain the rights which they had before the amending regulations of 1951, but they were not entitled to extend their operations under these licences to an unlimited extent. “I gather from the evidence that they have been extending their cartage of fat lambs in recent years, and were likely to extend it further, to the.detriment of other operators and the railways. I do not think it is in the'public interest for them to extend their operations in this way,” the Appeal Authority said.