Cardiff Will Not Sell to B.E.T.
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T a special meeting last week. rACardiff City Council decided by 29 votes to 14 against selling the motorbus section of the municipal transport undertaking to a private company. There were three abstentions.
After protracted debate in the General Purposes Committee, the council rejected a reaffirmed decision of the finance committee seeking authority to negotiate an agreement under the Road Traffic Act, 1930, for transferring thz buses to the British Electric Tractiort group.
Alter receiving a letter from the company intimating readiness to negotiate an agreement with the council, the committee had decided to ask the council to defer imposing a rate of 21s. 3d., as previously recommended.
This was because there was an understanding that if negotiations for the disposal of the motorbuses were opened and satisfactory agreement were reached, the sum realized on the transaction would be more than sufficient to cover the deficit of £257,000 on the transport undertaking that had accrued al the end of March last year, Rate Estimate to be Cut Mr. Lincoln Hallinan moved that next year's estimates should be referred back to committees, with the request that they should return them to the finance committee, showing reductions in expenditure approaching 10 per cent. of that already approved by the finance committee. The motion was carried, The general rate estimate for next year was approved at £2,196,180, but a cut of 10 per cent. in this amount would still be insufficient to meet,the transport deficit completely.
Ald. Sir William Williams, moving for powers to negotiate, said that 11.E.T., through its associated companies, was the largest owner of buses in the country, controlling something like 11,000 vehicles. The concern was prepared to run the corporation motorbus services and guarantee them..
After a member had questioned whether it was legal to sell capital assets c2 to meet revenue deficits or rate expenditure, Mr. W. S. Courtis observed that apparently during the past five years the council had been committing an illegal act by carrying forward accumulated deficits on the undertaking.
65 YEARS OF HARMONY AT a time when industrial unrest was widespread, the company took pride in the fact that it had never had a strike during its 65 years' history, said Mr. J. H. Ewer, managing director of George Ewer and Co., Ltd., at the staff annual dinner last week. He warned employees, however, to beware of evil influences, which, he said, moved in the most surprising places.
Mr, W. A. Moens, national sales matterof the Dunlop Rubber Co„
Ltd., paid a tribute to the company's signal success as a coach operator in the jungle competition" of London.
BLACKPOOL DEPENDS ON COACHES AA OR E than half of Blackpool's IV-I-visitors arrived by road and the resort's prosperity largely depended en the coaching industry. Ald. R. W. Marshall, J.P., Mayor of Blackpool, and president of the Blackpool and District Motor Coach Owners' Association, made this statement at the Association's annual dinner.
"In one day," he said, " the largest number of motor coaches that came into Blackpool was 8,500, and that represents 250,000 people."