The Roads & Road Transport History Association Contents The 1968 Transport Act and its aftermath Page 1 (Robert McCloy) Municipal Pride (Roger Atkinson) Page 7 The Changing Face of British Cement Page 10 JOURNAL Manufacture, and producer transport (Glen McBirnie) The ‘Widnes’ List: a Tale of abortive Page 12 research (John Howie) No. 80 Wales on Wheels 2015 Page 14 May 2015 www.rrtha.org.uk Book Reviews Page 17 AGM report Page 18 Sharing Our Interests Page 19 The 1968 Transport Act and its aftermath Our chairman Robert McCloy presented his thoughts Urgent transport can’t wait for local government on the role of city regions at the March AGM, as reform illustrated through the intentions of the Transport Act 1968 and subsequent changes. In the UK a Labour government was in office with Barbara Castle its feisty transport minister. Matters on the move in the 1960s A Royal Commission had been appointed to recast local government in England and some There is currently much talk about the argued that a reorganization of transport should establishment of ‘City Regions’. For some it is a wait upon the Royal Commission. Not so, knee-jerk reaction to events in Scotland: a contended Barbara Castle: the transport needs realization that as greater devolution occurs and confusion of the conurbations was such that outside England, some such similar change must there could be no further delay. In any case, what occur in other regions, some with considerably was now proposed – the establishment of larger populations. However, its genesis is surely Passenger Transport Authorities [PTAs] in the to be found elsewhere. Resisting the temptation great centres of population, or city regions- could to forage in the undergrowth of ancient Greece or be adjusted to conform to any new local even further down in time, the focus of this piece government structures. Central to the proposal is relatively more recent: to the late 1960s. It was was the notion that transport was the crucial a moment when attention was increasingly element in a quest for wider economic well- focusing upon a re-ordering of local government, being which included housing and spatial not only in the United Kingdom, but also on the planning. Moreover, public road transport was continent, for example, in Italy. The spur was in decline and congestion threatened traffic and population migration and mobility which had economic paralysis. outgrown structures long in place. 1 Roads and Road Transport The proposed solution History Association Limited Better use of the railway in the conurbations was Chairman: a vital ingredient and there had to be localized Dr Robert McCloy governance to effect a rational integration of the 32 Marina Villas, Swansea, SA1 1FZ modes of public passenger transport. As noted by [email protected] Barbara Castle in the Second Reading of the to whom general correspondence may be addressed legislation: Journal Editor: ’…a basic principle of my policy [is] that local people Peter White should be responsible for transport policy in their own 13 Lingwood Gardens, Isleworth, TW7 5LY communities. Any objective person reading these parts [email protected] of the Bill must be struck by the revolutionary degree to whom all items for publication should be addressed of devolution of powers for transport and traffic which they represent…But integration [of bus and rail Company Secretary and Association Secretary: services] must go further than that. In my view, there Philip Kirk is absolutely no hope of coping with the traffic The Kithead Trust, De Salis Drive, explosion in our cities unless those who plan them, Hampton Lovett, Droitwich Spa, WR9 0QE who build the highways and the housing estates and [email protected] site the factories and the overspill developments -- and who manage the traffic – are also responsible for public Membership Secretary: transport.’1 Mrs Pat Campany 30 Rectory Lane, Ashtead, Surrey, KT21 2BB The original Passenger Transport Authorities [email protected] comprised representatives appointed by local to whom all membership enquiries should be authorities wholly or partly within the areas addressed designated, together with up to one-seventh of the total nominated by the Secretary of State, but Events Organiser: who were mainly local people and not subject to John Ashley the Secretary of State's control or 6 Cefn Glas, Tycoch, Swansea, SA2 9GW instructions. The PTAs would be that instrument [email protected] and would determine overall policy, including fares, services, and subsidy, and be able to Research Co-ordinator: precept upon its constituent rating authorities.2 Tony Newman It would own the municipal transport operations 16 Hill View, Bryn Y Baal, Mold, CH7 6SL and be able to purchase local commercial [email protected] operations, and commission rail services from British Railways. Day-to-day business, however, Academic Advisor: would be the responsibility of professional Professor John Armstrong managers constituting the Passenger Transport 42 Inglis Road, Ealing, London W3 3RL Executive. The Secretary of State [for Transport, [email protected] in England, and for Scotland and Wales] would designate the areas affected after consultation. Roads and Road Transport History Association Limited, a company limited by guarantee, The establishment of the first PTAs registered number 5300873 Directors: John Ashley, Robert McCloy, Duly, after local negotiation, the Secretary of Michael Phillips State for Transport designated PTAs in four areas Registered Office: De Salis Drive, within England. The ‘vesting dates’, on which the Hampton Lovett, Droitwich Spa, WR9 0QE 1 Hansard, Transport Bill, Second Reading, column 1294. ISSN : 2044-7442 2 Transport Act, 1968, Part ii. 2 PTEs took over the constituent local authority personal social services, and other local transport undertakings, were: functions. Astride this structure there would be eight provinces responsible for strategic - South East Lancashire and North East Cheshire development plans. However, the Redcliffe- [SELNEC] - 1 October 1969 Maud proposals, though surely plausible, were - West Midlands - 1 November 1969 not to be implemented: a casualty of and election, - Merseyside - 1 December 1969 entrenched interests, opportunistic politics, and - Tyneside - 1 January 1970 public conservatism. Subsequently the Secretary of State for Scotland designated one for Greater Glasgow [June 1, 1973]. The Secretary of State for Wales failed to designate any for Wales. As in the case of an earlier initiative embracing the possibility of an area scheme for transport under the Transport Act of 1947, local government in south Wales, a possible area for a passenger transport authority, offered spirited opposition.3 The proposed reform of local government Local government re-organization, when later enacted, produced Metropolitan Counties substantially corresponding to the designated areas. The Royal Commission’s report [Redcliffe- Maud], however, had advocated the establishment of fifty-eight unitary authorities for England based on the rationale that town and Above: The Manchester Corporation fleet formed the country were largely interdependent, that each largest element of SELNEC’s bus operations. The should be responsible for physical environmental ‘Mancunican’ design, unique to the city, was used to services, namely, planning and transport, with extend double-deck one-person operation, is seen here boundaries reflecting geographical population in June 1968 (Peter White) and movement, transport infra-structure and travel patterns; personal services, namely, The Conservative government’s reform of local education, social services, health and housing; government with populations in the range 250,000 to one million. For three conurbations there would be a On the fall of the Labour government the two tier arrangement: metropolitan authorities, successor Conservative administration for Merseyside, SELNEC, and the West significantly revised the plans, retaining in its Midlands, with responsibility for planning, Local Government Act 1972 a two tier transport and general housing policy, and district arrangement for England, largely discounting the authorities with responsibility for education and fundamental rationale of Redcliffe-Maud with its emphasis upon town and country 3 Newport County Borough Council endorsed a interdependence, and put in place a pragmatic joint report of the town clerk, treasurer and settlement largely free of any overt new rationale, transport manager vigorously opposing the the subject of much confusion and possibility of a PTA for south Wales. Earlier, misunderstanding and of subsequent necessary Cardiff City Council had sought to forestall the but dilatory attempts at further reform. Reform imposition of an area scheme for south Wales, in Wales followed a parallel process of under the Transport Act, 1947, by proposing an discussion, settling initially upon a two-tier arrangement involving Cardiff and contiguous system which was then replaced by a unitary Monmouthshire parish councils. system, itself shortly to be re-organised by amalgamation. 3 The limited powers of the Metropolitan Counties overall centrally-planned and integrated scheme. Rail services also had to be considered in this scheme and The new metropolitan county councils, which the many other issues concerning fares, ticketing, legislation specified for the conurbations, became corporate identity, control and organization all the passenger transport authorities. This