§ 100. Mrs. Middletonasked the Minister of Transport what decisions he has reached concerning the recommendations contained in the Report of the Technical Committee on Petrol Stations, which sat under the chairmanship of Lord Waleran.
§ Mr. BarnesIn consultation with those of my colleagues concerned, I have given careful consideration to this Report and to the views which the interested organisations have been good enough to express on it at my invitation. There is no doubt that the committee performed a very useful task by their investigations into the principles which should govern the location and equipment of petrol stations and166W the standards of service to be provided by them if the public interest is to be most efficiently served. Their conclusions on these technical matters will form a valuable guide to all concerned.
The committee's Report raises the difficult question whether any further measures of compulsory control are required. The committee rightly emphasise that unnecessary control is fundamentally unsound, while recognising that to give full effect to their recommendations would mean enforcing a system of grading stations with consequential limitation of kind and number. Having regard to the powers already available under the Petroleum and Planning Acts in the interests of safety and amenity and to the undesirability of multiplying controls without the clearest evidence of need for them, my colleagues and I have reached the conclusion that we should not be justified in asking Parliament for further powers at the present time.