Tribunal rejects deletion
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The Transport Tribunal has overturned a decision to delete the Walton-on-Thames operating centre from the licence held by ET Benson Precision Engineering. In effect South Eastern & Metropolitan Deputy Traffic Commissioner Brigadier Michael Turner was giving the firm six months to find a new operating centre.
The Deputy TC had deleted the Lyons Road Industrial Estate site from the three-vehicle licence on road safety grounds.
He said that when the licence was granted the TC and Surrey County Council had been led into thinking it would be reached from Lyon Road. in practice that had changed and vehicles now entered via the Weylands site.
In 1997 a public inquiry had been held into applications by two operators to use the Weylands site. The council, supported by the police, produced evidence of a safety hazard at the junction of the access road and the main road.
For Bensons, Jacqueline Beech argued that the Deputy TC had been wrong to conclude that there had been a change, as vehicles had always reached the operating centre from the rear. She added that he had expressly found that the company had not misled anyone.
Allowing the appeal, the Tribunal asked IC Chris Heaps to decide if further action was appropriate and noted that at the public inquiry Benson's representative had challenged the council's evidence.
The Deputy TC had indicated that he would be given an opportunity to develop his arguments; however, the Trbunal concluded that this had not happened.