Haulier gets second chance for maintenance problems
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A Newcastle-upon-Tyne-based liaulier narrowly escaped having its licence revoked after years of ongoing maintenance problems, a public inquiry heard.
At the third hearing in four years, Longbenton-based Ramage Transport was told that standards were still not good enough and that promises to put the situation right had been broken.
The company had its licence slashed to 80 vehicles and 90 trailers for six months. The order was suspended for 24 hours while driver and fitter training took place.
Vehicle examiner Gary Nicholson told the hearing he had examined 15 vehicles and 10 trailers in March. He had issued one immediate and five delayed prohibition notices plus 19 defect notices.
The move followed some 21 immediate and 33 delayed prohibition notices over the past five years, while the period between inspections had also been exceeded.
Nicholson had expressed doubts over whether company staff could actually carry out thorough inspections.
However, Ramage maintained that moves were underway to rectify the situation—and that a number of measures had been put in place to improve both the state of the workshops' and the firm's standards.
These included the appointment of a service manager who had complete power to take vehicles out of service, as well as the hiring of an external consultant engineer.
Company boss Robin Ramage said that the workshops were currently being extended and updated, and that older trailers were in the process of being replaced.
He accepted that insufficient time may previously have been allocated to some of the maintenance. "I realise this is a serious issue—I am embarrassed lobe here," he added.
In announcing his decision, North East Traffic Commissioner Tom Macartney said the company could easily have lost its licence and needed to improve standards.
While he accepted that money had been spent on putting matters right and that Ramage was keen to rectify the situation, he highlighted that the quality of maintenance remained sub-standard.