BANK HOLIDAY CROWDING
SIR,—I have just returned from a Bank Holiday week-end, and suffered with others the usual discomforts of overcrowding and delay which nowadays accompany such occasions. Are not Bank Holidays the kernel of the " staggering " problem, and has not the time now come to review their practicability and usefulness? In a small and largely rural society, public holidays are practicable since, even if everyone is on holiday at the same time, no great overcrowding results. In a populous urban society, and particularly in a sprawling monstrosity like the London area, the problem is quite different. Here, if everyone (except those maintaining essential services) is on holiday at once, all services become impossibly overstrained, and general discomfort is inevitable.
There seem to be three possible solutions :—(1) to maintain the present Bank Holiday arrangements, and endeavour to increase all services—transport, catering, etc.—to meet the abnormal requirements ; (2) to stagger Bank Holidays on a local or type-of-work basis, or (3) to abolish Bank Holidays altogether, and add the days of holiday to each individual's annual holiday allowance. All these solutions have imme- diate and serious objections—practical, religious and commercial—and all are drastically untraditional. I would suggest, however, that (1) presents quite insuperable practical difficulties, and would be likely to lead to a vicious circle of " peak travelling." Thus, if we are to avoid in the future the real discomfort which for most people is the bane (though for a few it is the spice) of Bank Holiday times, a choice between (2) and (3) seems inevitable. In these days- of planning, cannot a practicable solution be found?—Yours faithfully,
40 Pembridge Villas, Notting Hill, W. zr. OLIVER H. LAWN.
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