Fleet inspection needed
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• Consideration of disciplinary action against the licence held by K
IL Transport Services (Midlands), of Slade Heath, has been adjourned until June, when it is due for renewal.
However, West Midland Licensing Authority John Mervyn Pugh warned that he would require a full fleet inspection to be carried out before then.
He warned that if the compa. ny's vehicles receive any prohibitions for a significant failure in maintenance, it could expect to have its fleet substantially reduced. "It is up to you to finally put your house in order, otherwise I will do it for you," he said.
This was the company's third appearance at public inquiry in 15 months. In October 1994 DLA Alan Bourlet cut the duration of the licence because of maintenance problems and convictions for vehicle excise duty offences, failing to produce tachograph records, and permitting drivers to exceed the hours limits and take insufficient rest. The company had been ordered to pay fines, costs and back duty amounting to £18,983.
In June, the licence was renewed for one year only with a warning about future maintenance standards.
Since then five prohibition notices had been imposed on its vehicles and it had been convicted by Ledbury Magistrates of the unauthorised use of a vehicle Consultant engineer Robert Widgery said that 80 vehicles had been tested since the last public inquiry and only four had had to be re-presented. The prohibitions issued did not indicate neglect and there was no doubt that in a number of cases the defects had arisen during the course of a journey. One of the prohibitions was put on a trailer that did not belong to the company. One of the problems in the past was that vehicles had not been brought in on time for inspection, but that had now been put right.
Asked if the company would ever get it right, Widgery replied that he thought they had done so now but things did go wrong on occasions.
For the company, Martin Jones said that the unauthorised use convictions at Ledbury were due to negligence in the traffic office. The offences were in September 1994 and they occurred at a time when the company had expanded very rapidly and its systems could not cope. Giant strides had been made since, and it was a very different company now to that in 1994.
Director David Kay said the vehicle in the unauthorised use case had been taken off the road to be sold. It was used by a transport manager who was unaware it had been taken off the 0licence. Check procedures had been set up to prevent that and the vehicle taxation problems recurring
The company had first-class facilities and he had every confidence in the staff. Since May they had spent 1311,000 on new vehicles and he felt they were now as good, if not better, than many large national operators.
After Mervyn Pugh had indicated he was considering suspending the licence, Kay said that a suspension would be catastrophic.
The customers were all of long standing and they relied upon the company's service. If the company was not there to provide it they would go elsewhere.