IC rejects neighbours' objections
Page 16
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Charnwood Borough Council and local residents have failed to stop,) Goodacre & Co From operating trailers rom Wide Street, Hathern. Leics.
The firm holds a licence for 22 vehicles and 25 trailers, with 16 vehicles and 21 trailers based at the Junction 23 Lorry Park, Shepshed, and seven vehicles and four trailers at Hathern, where all trailer maintenance is carried out.
Following complaints, a five-yearly review of the Hathern operating centre was carried out by Eastern Deputy Traffic Commissioner Brian Horner, who decided not to vary the environmental 0-licence conditions which had been imposed on that site.
Homer's decision was successfully challenged by one of the residents, Michael Forrest, at a Judicial Review. But the High Court overruled the review and ordered that the case should be sent back to Traffic Commissioner Geoffrey Simms for a final decision.
During a twc-day public inquiry at Loughborough Denys Goodacre, a part. nor, said the company had been based at Wide Street since 1929. It currently operated 12 tractors, one rigid and 24 trailers.
Its principal client was British Gypsum, which demanded the use of curtain-sided trailers. Many of the deliveries entailed early morning starts; that was why most of the trailers were kept at the Junction 23 Lorry Park. It offered little more than somewhere to park; no formal maintenance was allowed by the site owner and there was no power or compressed air.
Diesel sold by the site owner was considerably more expensive than fuel purchased in bulk and delivered to Wide Street. The maintenance of most of the tractors was contracted out.
Goodacre promised that the firm would restrict the number of trailer movements in and out of Wide Street to five a day, Since Forrest's requests, power tools were no longer used in the workshop, no steam cleaning was carried out, and activities had been reduced to a minimum.
The TC decided that seven vehicles and four trailers should continue to be authorised at Wide Street. He said the residents had benefited from the conditions on the licence and he considered the firm had acted reasonably in observing those conditions, by obtaining an alternative operating centre for the majority of their high.sided trailers and by ending some maintenance practices that had caused nuisance.