Danish weight offences • cost UK firm its licence
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FURTHER APPLICATION WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED FOR NINE MONTHS
• The British associate company of a Danish haulage firm whose vehicles arrived in the UK "regularly and persistently" overloaded was refused an operator's licence this week.
In a written decision following a two-day hearing in January (CM January 19 and 26) the Eastern LA, Mr H. E. Robson, says he is not satisfied that the applicant, AGS Continental Transport Ltd, Harwich, is a "fit person" to hold a licence at this time.
The decision states: "It seems to me that the Danish AGS company have persistently and regularly in spite of warnings and in the full knowledge of what they were doing, been bringing vehicles to this country loaded to weights well in excess of those prescribed by UK regulations. In the face of this evidence I do not find the applicant company a fit person to hold a licence."
Mr Robson also says that he is not satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to indicate that the regulations governing drivers' hours and records and maintenance and inspections will be complied with, although this alone would not make him withhold a licence.
At the hearings the solicitor for AGS said that his client was a separate legal entity and that the director applying on behalf of AGS had not been actually responsible for the documentation of Danish AGS arrivals. His main task had been to secure return loads and "help out" as an agent.
The LA rejects this and says: "The firm of AGS Denmark (Aarhus God Transport) has a majority shareholder with a significant interest in and control of the applicant company." Mr Robson says that AGS were warned about overloading at Harwich docks at the time of the introduction of the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act but had continued to offend after that time.
The LA points out that despite assurances about overloading the incoming traffic from Denmark would still be loaded there and merely hauled from the docks by the proposed vehicles of the British AGS company.
In refusing the application for four vehicles and four trailers, the LA says he will not entertain another application for a period of nine months. During that time he orders that further prohibitions on AGS (Denmark) vehicles be referred to him. He will arrange for a similar arrangement with other traffic areas. Harwich said he would be consulting with his Danish colleagues and solicitor to consider an appeal.
At an earlier hearing in January, the LA had been told that in a three-month period from September to December 1972, 21 out of 27 AGS vehicles weighed at Harwich docks had been found overweight, while of another 29 vehicles, for which AGS was said to be agent, 22 were found to be overloaded. A total of 34 vehicles had been issued with prohibition notices.
A traffic examiner, giving evidence, had said that on seven vehicles the weights were between 41 and 45 tons.
On behalf of the applicant, an undertaking had been given that the British subsidiary would work within the prescribed weight limits and the Danish parent company had given assurances that it would not send overweight vehicles to the UK.
The applicant had also challenged the accuracy of the lists of prohibited vehicles produced in evidence by the DoE and denied that, as an agent for Danish AGS, he was responsible for weight regulations.