Named Customers' Traffic Allowed in Limited Grant to Judkins
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WITNESSES from Judkins (Coated Macadam) Ltd., of Nuneaton, told the West Midland deputy Licensing Authority, Mr. R. Hall, at Birmingham last week that the firm wanted to provide a service for its customers, mostly in the building and contracting industry, by hiring out its small low-loader.
Judkina applied for a B licence for a 10-ton articulated low-loader with a 21-ton tractor unit and a 21-ton trailer, conditioned to carry contractors' plant and civil engineering plant and machinery for its customers, and machinery for Nuneaton Engineering Co. within 30 miles. Pickfords Ltd. objected.
Mr. Hall said the evidence did not warrant a grant being made in the terms sought, but he made a grant allowing the carriage of contractors' plant and civil engineering plant and machinery for three customers, J. Farmer and Sons, Thomas W. Ward Ltd., of Coventry and G. E. and W. Wincock Ltd., and machinery for Nuneaton Engineering Ltd.
Mr. A. F. Walton, company secretary of Judkins, said the vehicle was used for 50 per cent of the time on moving his firm's own Plant, and that figure could increase to 60 per cent. There had been a number of occasions when contractors had asked for use of the vehicle to move their plant and had been refused because it was not appropriately licensed.
His company had no intention of entering the low-loader field as such, went on Mr. Walton. It had had this vehicle for five years, but it was only in the past two years that requests had been received for hire of the vehicle. This was because of the general increased mechanization in the building industry.
Mr. G. T. Greenfield, director and general manager of the applicant company, said that he received requests to hire the vehicle three or four times a month. His customers often had to improvise to shift their own plant from site to site or from site to base. One, for example, carried Drott mechanical diggers on ordinary tipper lorries and had to find a suitable hank or mound in order to off-load them.
For Pickfords, Mr. R. S. Wolfe, commercial representative, produced evidence showing the availability of suitable lowloaders capable of the type of work which had been mentioned. "We. hope we could be able to supply suitable vehicles quicker than the applicants from any of our four depots within a 30-mile radius of Nuneaton ", he said.