Cash-crisis haulier hit • An international haulier whose company was
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wound up earlier this year for the non-payment of VAT, and who ran two vehicles without tax for six months, had his licence revoked at a Cheltenham disciplinary inquiry.
Nigel Powell, who held a licence for five vehicles and four trailers based at Newent, Gloucester, had been called before Western Deputy Traffic Commissioner Lester Madrell.
DOT vehicle examiner Andrew Tudor said that in April he checked four vehicles and one trailer, imposing one immediate and two delayed prohibitions. The company's initial pass rate at annual test was zero.
An immediate prohibition had been imposed on a. vehicle at a previous fleet check in January 1997 and it seemed that Powell was unable to maintain his vehicles to the required standard.
Tudor added that Powell had been convicted of using an vehicle without a valid Vehicle Excise Duty disc in November 1997.
Senior traffic examiner Peter Smith said an analysis of Powell's tachograph records had revealed that two untaxed vehicles had been used between August 1997 and February 1998, their previous tax discs having expired the previous April and May. Both vehicles remained untaxed.
Powell said one vehicle had failed a brake test because he had not known that he could tie up the load sensing valve to achieve the required efficiency. It was not a question of any inefficiency in the brakes, he said.
He added that a vehicle had failed twice because of the wings on the lift-up axle. But when they put four wings on, one pair was knocked off as soon as the vehicle backed under a swan-necked trailer. The vehicles and trailer seen by the examiner in April had just returned from the Continent In reply to the Deputy TC, Powell agreed that a company of which he had been a director, NGP Freight, had been wound up on the petition of the Customs & Excise for the alleged non-payment of VAT