Transland jumps gun on 0-licence by Rob Willock II Anglo-Irish
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haulier Transland Transport is operating in the UK with no 0-licence and its fleet of ageing Ivecos is rarely serviced, according to former employees.
One driver says he was forced to quit earlier this month after he refused to drive a truck with faulty brakes.
Commercial Motor has confirmed with the licensing authorities that neither Transland Transport, nor its freight forwarding operation Transland International UK, have 0-licences.
Transland Transport has a standard international licence application pending with the Eastern Traffic Area Office for 20 vehicles and trailers to be based in Coalville, Leics.
But a spokeswoman for the Eastern TAO says: "The application is incomplete—we have asked for further information from the company." There is no interim authority in force.
CM photographed two of the company's vehicles at its Birmingham office, neither of which are covered by UK 0-licences: no licence discs were displayed in their windows. Another Transland vehicle CM checked is also unlicensed.
CM's source claims Transland's transport director, Freddy Bryans, told him that his truck's ineffective brakes would last a few weeks more. "Basically, it was drive illegally or you're finished," he says. He and other ex-employees also allege that Transland keeps no service records, instructs its drivers to "lose" their tacho charts, and forces them to drive outside the hours laws.
Bryans has told Commercial Motor that he holds a separate 0-licence covering the operation—it doesn't—and that the whistleblowing driver is just a "whinger": "He was moaning all the time," says Bryans. "This is just sour grapes because I dropped him like a hot potato."
Bryans admits the vehicles CM photographed are unlicensed, but says that they don't go anywhere. However, Stena in Dublin confirms that one of them has used the Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire ferry five times in the last month.
Pay slips, vehicle logbooks and ferry bookings are all in the name of Transland Transport. The company was incorporated in December 1997 and has contracts to haul goods, including groceries and magazines, between the UK and Ireland.