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Council keeps licence p
Page 34
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• Maintenance problems experienced by Merthyr Tydfil Borough Council were blamed on the involvement of Clayton Jones and Ian Evans in Merthyr Transport, the company responsible for the maintenance of the council's goods vehicles.
The council appeared at disciplinary proceedings in Cardiff before South Wales Licensing Authority John Mervyn Pugh, who was also considering an application for the renewal of the council's restricted licence for 32 vehicles.
Asked to explain four prohibition notices imposed last October, and a lack of maintenance records, Gareth Morgan, for Merthyr, said the council had previously run its own bus services and maintenance was carried out by the council's bus department.
Following the 1985 Transport Act, an "arms length" company, Merthyr Transport, was set up to run the buses. It was agreed that that company should provide maintenance facilities to the council.
In June 1989 the Council sold Merthyr Transport to what it thought was the Evans Parfitt Consortium. A week or so later the Council found that Merthyr Transport was being run by Ian Evans and Clayton Jones — something the council had not previously known.
In August 1989 Merthyr Transport went into administration to avoid a petition for compulsory liquidation by creditors. It ceased trading that month and the council found itself in great difficulty, as it did not have anyone to maintain its vehicles.
An agreement was entered into with BRS (Western) which took over the maintenance on 1 September. However, the administrators of Merthyr Transport refused to provide the maintenance records for the vehicles. The prohibitions had arisen in the hiatus period just after BRS had taken over.
Mervyn Pugh adjourned the proceedings for a week to enable all 19 vehicles operated to be inspected by BRS and certified as capable of passing an MoT test.
When the hearing was resumed leuen Williams of BRS (Western), said the company had examined 18 vehicles, one vehicle was off the road and no decision had been taken as to whether it was to be repaired. A number of defects were found and rectified. Williams agreed that those defects would have constituted a danger to the public. There were also some omissions in the licence discs and a legal plate was missing.
Morgan said the council had reduced the inspection periods to four weeks.
Renewing the licence for two years, Mervyn Pugh said that it had "hung on a thread" on the first day of the hearing. He expected a local authority to set an example in the quality of its vehicles. However, he accepted that the traumatic history was not all of the council's own making.
Mervyn Pugh commented that he was extremely disturbed that safety documentation had been withheld by the administrators of Merthyr Transport.