Private Transport Service? – Suggested for Denaby and Cadeby Miners

March 1945

South Yorkshire Times, March 3, 1945

Private Transport Service?
Suggested for Denaby and Cadeby Miners

Mr T. Hill presided at the annual meeting of the Denaby and Cadeby Hall Coal Carting Committee held in the Welfare Institute on Sunday.

Accounts presented by Mr Yates (Messrs. J. Thorgood and Co.)were approved as satisfactory. The general cash account showed a total income of £5,546 17s 8 ½ and a balance in hand of £1,321. During the year, 30,000 loads of coal were delivered, and the profit and loss account of the transportation selection showed that the net profit for the year was £416 5 s 4d compared with last year’s loss of £63 12s 3d, when £500 was expended in the purchase of a new lorry. The balance sheet gave total assets £7,933 3s 9d, with surplus assets amounting to 6173 14s 7d.

Mr. J. T. E. Collins raised the question of provision of transport of workmen from the pits to their homes, he thought the whole coal carting committee should explore the possibilities of providing a private service.

Mr. Hill said apart from the tremendous difficulties in such an undertaking the time was not opportune. The committee had one lorry which had been on the road 14 years and they were unable to get replacement of the vehicle.

Mr Hill also pointed out that the conditions at the Denaby and Cadeby pits were not parallel with those obtaining at those pits where they had their own transport system. At those other collieries the nearest homes of the workmen were more than a mile from the pit head, whereas at Denaby some the workmen’s homes were almost in the pit yard. The only means of financing such a scheme would be a weekly stoppage from the wages and he thought that many of the men would object to such a stoppage when they had no need for the transport.

Mr Hill also mentioned that one nearby colliery which had such a transport system in operation had to subside the scheme out of the coal carting fund, which the result that the charges for leading a load of coal were something like two shillings more than those at Denaby and Cadeby and as the balance sheet showed a profit of £416 did not leave much of a margin for subsides.

Mr Collins proposal was put the meeting and carried.