By Alan Richardson

THE RECENT row over whether the provost’s ‘ES 1’ licence plate should be sold to raise cash for Perthshire has led to a trawl through the council archives to establish where the much-debated item came from.

The Courier received a claim that the licence plate—believed to be worth up to a quarter of a million pounds—was donated to the council by an Aberfeldy man.

However, this has been rejected by the authority, which has resisted calls from locals and councillors to auction it off.

Earlier this year, the licence plate ‘GS 1’ sold for £220,000 at auction.

Council archivists have now established that the then Perth County Council’s motor taxation department contacted the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation in 1954 in a bid to acquire the registration ‘ES 0’ for the lord provost’s town car.

A spokesman for the council said, “The ministry advised that although ‘S 0’ and ‘G 0’ had been issued to Edinburgh and Glasgow, some concern had been raised that these two plates gave rise to the mistaken impression that they consisted solely of letters. They therefore felt that the request for ‘ES 0’ could not be granted.

“Following this decision, the motor taxation department informed the town clerk that a Dr Graham—by then deceased—had made use of licence plate ‘ES 1’ since 1921 and that if Dr Graham’s family no longer wanted to make use of the number, it could possibly be reissued for use by the county council.

“The town clerk contacted the representatives of Dr Graham seeking assurances that Mrs Graham would not wish to ‘take up’ the number.

“It transpired that Mrs Graham was by then resident in Jersey and had recently marked her 100th birthday.

“Her legal representatives consequently confirmed that they saw no objection to the number being re-issued to the town council.

“The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation was then contacted again and a request lodged for the special concessionary transfer of the number plate ‘ES 1’ to the town car.

“Aware of the full background to the request and aware of the ‘special circumstances’, the minister confirmed that he would ‘raise no objection, as an exceptional measure’ to the ‘ES 1’ number being reissued to Perth County Council.

“When the new town car was registered, an application was also lodged with the motor taxation department and, following payment of the required £5 fee, the ‘ES 1’ licence plate was allocated.”

The mark has been used on the chaffeur-driven car, used to get the provost to official functions, ever since.