Renewed with war rim
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• Though renewing the licence held by Scottish Road Services for five years, Scottish Deputy Licensing Authority Ramsay Dalgety QC warned the company about its future conduct.
In addition to the company's application to renew its international licence for 506 vehicles and 519 trailers, the DLA con sidered taking disciplinary action following prohibition notices imposed on the company's vehicles and convictions recorded against it.
Roy Thompson, SRS technical services manager, conceded that in the past five years there had been 23 immediate and 44 delayed prohibitions, 11 of which were endorsed "neglect". However, he pointed out that two recent "neglect" prohibitions were imposed on trailers not belonging to Scottish Road Services, though drawn by the company's tractor units. He said that, including the contract hire fleet, the company had 1,121 vehicles and 441 trailers in possession.
Most of the company's depots were visited by vehicle examiners in June, said Thompson. No prohibition notices were issued and the only matter raised was a deficiency in record-keeping at East Kilbride. A new branch manager was now in charge at that depot. Of 48 convictions recorded against the company, 31 concerned overloading; the majority in respect of excess axle weights. A portable axleweighing device had been bought and a six-axle configuration was now used for certain traffic.
For SRS, Michael Whiteford argued that the record of prohibitions and convictions was not particularly bad when set against the scale of the operation. SRS moves between 5,000 and 10,000 loads each week. Whiteford referred to a Road Haulage Association report that highlighted the lack of self-weighing facilities; saying that of 63 axle-weighers used for enforcement purposes, only 12 had a self-weigh facility and nine of those were on enclosed dock estates.
Managing director William Glenroy maintained it would be commercially damaging if the licence was renewed for less than five years.
Renewing the licence with a warning, Dalgety said he was satisfied that Scottish Road Services was doing all in its power to meet its obligations, but he could not entirely ignore its past record. The trend was downwards, and if the steps taken were successful, the problems would be negligible.