Postwar austerity

The immediate postwar years were difficult times for the road haulage industry. It was effectively being run with prewar vehicles, and hauliers had to wait until the early 1950s before new designs of lorries emerged onto the market.
The growth in road freight transport was phenomenal. When goods licensing was introduced in 1933 there were around 450,000 commercial vehicles in use, the figure increasing to 480,000 by 1937, and to 670,000 in 1947. Thereafter, with manufacturers getting production fully under way, the surge in the number of private goods haulage (C-licensed) vehicles meant that nearly half a million were registered between 1946 and 1952.
With the prospect of nationalisation and the establishment of the British Transport Commission, the late 1940s and early 50s was a period of uncertainty. Though the Transport Bill passed into law in August 1947, it was so watered down that only part of the long-distance road transport industry was nationalised, all C-licensed haulage remaining in private hands.