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Trio of firms come 'perilously close' to Losing 0-licences
Page 14
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THREE RELATED Kent haulage firms have come "perilously close" to losing their 0-licences following serious maintenance failings, a DTC has warned.
The three companies — MJD Containers, MJD Services (UK) and MJD Logistics (UK) — are run by the same directors, Michael and Patricia Dole, and operate from the same site in Swanscombe, Kent.
Deputy South-Eastern and Metropolitan TC John Baker said that since October 2007, "the performance of the operator has been far from satisfactory': However, he felt it had not done enough to merit being put out of business. Instead, he cut the various licences. effectively removing five vehicles from each fleet for 14 days. The inquiry was told that since October 2007, almost 50 prohibitions had been issued against the three firms, with MJD Containers attracting the majority.
Two unannounced fleet inspections in October and November 2008 uncovered that although the trucks and trailers were in a gener
ally good condition, there were still problems with the driver defect reporting system. The average firsttime annual vehicle test pass-rate across the three companies was 55.97%, compared with a national average of 67.85%, the DTC heard.
A new fleet manager was employed in January to oversee the in-house maintenance operation, the DTC was told.
Transport manager Dennis Smith also said that the heavy use of overseas drivers — 35 Poles and another 25-40 from Romania and Lithuania are employed — had caused some problems, largely down to the language barrier.
DTC Baker warned: -The continuing pattern of failure to operate without breaching the terms of the licences means that the operators have come perilously close to revocation."
He continued: -They should be fully aware that if this pattern continues in the future. there will be a very high likelihood of revocation following."