Muddled management Leads to 0-licence cut
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Transport manager admits taking "eye off the ball", resulting in a breakdown in compliance and maintenance.
A MUDDLE OVER maintenance records and failing to submit annual accounts have resulted in a Derbyshire waste carrier's 0-licence being reduced from eight vehicles and six trailers to six vehicles and four trailers.
In cutting the 0-licence held by Environmental Services (Chesterfield), North-Western Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell said she was preventing the company from expanding until she knew it was compliant. She also gave the firm 28 days to produce its accounts.
For the company, Anton Balkitis told a Golborne Public Inquiry that the firm's vehicles served different functions and that they weren't all in use every day. It operated a 24-hour emergency service.
The problem relating to insufficient maintenance records had been caused by using more than one maintenance contractor, but there was now only one.
The business was a member of the Freight Transport Association and had also joined the Road Haulage Association (RHA), which had carried out a systems audit.
Director Kellee Falconer said the company was a registered waste carrier and needed to keep its current range of vehicles. At the time of the maintenance investigation in July, its transport manager had been working part-time for personal reasons. He was now back full-time and booked on a CPC refresher course. The split in maintenance contractors had led to a communications breakdown.
Since July, every vehicle presented for annual test had passed first time and records were now in order. Following a prohibition for loose wheelnuts, all vehicles had been equipped with wheelnut markers.
She said the RHA's recommendations would he carried out within a month,
and that a driver was being CPC trained to assist.
The TC also asked why the firm's accounts and annual returns were overdue. Falconer said she did not know when they had been sent to Companies House because it was the accountant's job. The TC pointed out that since she was the company secretary, it was her responsibility to know when they were sent and to confirm once they had been.
Transport manager Mark Smout admitted "he had taken his eye off the ball" at the time. Director Dawn Cupitt said she no longer had a role in the business and that her daughter, Kellee, was now at the helm, but it had never occurred to her to resign as a director.
Cutting the licence. the TC said that the company had started to make inroads into becoming compliant.