NORTHCOTE BUSES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 377, 19 March 1932, Page 29 (Supplement)

NORTHCOTE BUSES.

Application to Conduct Service Dismissed.

Though the Tramway Board is temporarily continuing the bus service from the Papanui tram terminus to Northcote, it has not applied to the Central Licensing Authority for a renewal of its license, and will therefore have to cease running the bus. The difficulties confronting the people of Northcote were explained to the Central Licensing Authority yesterday afternoon, and though a new applicant for a license to run between the city and Belfast, stated that he could carry on a timetable suitable for the Northcote district, his application "was dismissed. Argument arose as the result of an application by G. W. Manhire, for a renewal of his license for the Christ-church-Belfast service. This was heard conjointly with an application by G. E. W. Stacey for a new service along the same route. The last-mentioned applicant stated that he was willing, by instituting an adequate timetable, to supply the transport for Northcote residents* Counsel for applicant said that his client was applying for a license on the same conditions as at present. The conditions were that the applicant did not have to pick up passengers on the inward journey or put them down on the outward journey within a quarter of a mile of the tram terminus at Papanui. Tramway Board's Losses. The Tramway Board would oppose the granting of the license to run between Belfast and Christchurch unless the applicant agreed to cater for Northcote residents, said counsel for the board. It was contended that the Papanui tram could serve the district, as was recommended by the Metropolitan Authority. The Tramway Board was losing £IOOO a year in conveying an average of six passengers on each of the twenty-one trips daily. Northcote had power to form itself into an omnibus area, but it would then be under the unpleasant necessity of paying for the bus. Mr W. Hayward, a member of the Tramway Board, said that the total earnings of the Northcote bus for a year were £391, and the expenses £1424. Counsel for the Waimairi County Council and the burgesses said that the Tramway Board had opposed the license in the past, but now that the service had proved to be a liability it wanted to pass that liability on to the applicant. Asked for his objections to picking up Northcote residents, G. W. Manhire, the applicant, said that on certain days it would mean another bus. He denied that he had been “ got at ” by the Waimairi burgesses. Decision on Mr Manhire’s application was reserved, and Mr Stacey’s application was dismissed.

The matter of buses picking up Northcote passengers was again mentioned when Gould’s Motors were applying for a license to run from Christchurch to Kaiapoi. It was stated by the applicant that he preferred the present arrangement by which he was not able to pick up passengers within a quarter of a mile of the feeder bus terminus.