Haulier agrees to nil defect reporting
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• THE LICENCE held by West Midland haulier Victor Harding had been in real jeopardy. The only thing that had protected it from revocation had been undertakings given in regard to maintenance and the employment of a new transport manager, said West Midland Deputy LA Gerrard Sullivan when he took no action at the end of a disciplinary inquiry.
Harding had been called before the DLA because of doubts over whether the requirement in relation to professional competence was being met and because of complaints that Harding was parking vehicles at his home address, Forest Glade, Button Oak, near Bewdley.
Producing a letter from his new transport manager, Geoffrey Bentley, Harding said he was employing Bentley, who was working part time after having been made redundant five or six months ago. Bentley was working four hours a day at the moment. Questioned by Sullivan, Harding said that he had not thought to send the letter m earlier.
Harding said that his previous transport
manager, his father-in-law, had died two years previously. He had been without a transport manager all that time. He had never thought about it following the funeral. It was something that had been overlooked.
Sullivan said that Harding had an unsatisfactory disciplinary record going back to 1980. There had been objections from the district and parish councils concerning his operations over the years. The principal objection was that Harding was parking his vehicle at home and not at the operating centre.
Harding said that the vehicle he was parking at his home was not on the 0-licence. If the licence was revoked it would put two people out of work plus himself. He employed two drivers. He agreed that at the moment there was no system for them to report defects.
Sullivan said that the LA in that traffic area liked a drivers' nil defect reporting system, as it got drivers into the habit of looking for defects.
Harding undertook to institute such a system and to repair any defects before the vehicle concerned went back on the road.