Remedies save licence
Page 18
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a. port (Leeds) has
successfully bid the Eastern Traffic Area, despite a string of convictions on its record.
Eastern Licensing Authority Brigadier Compton Boyd said that 94 convictions had been recorded against the company and its drivers over the past five years. In the light of such a record he was going to take a great deal of persuading that a licence for 25 vehicles and 27 trailers ought to be granted by him.
Stephen Kirkbright, for the company, said the convictions against the associated Henry Long Transport ought not be to taken into account as that company had not been under A One's control at the time the offences were committed. There were only 35 convictions recorded against A One itself, he said.
Maintaining that was not a bad record for a fleet of between 250 and 300 vehicles, Kirkbright said there had been a dramatic fall in the rate of convic tions, from 14 in 1987 to one in 1990.
A One's quality control officer, Joan Eastwood, said that she had been given a brief by managing director Neil McGee to institute a system of quality procedures over the entire range of the company's operations. The critical elements were overloading, drivers hours and maintenance. The system placed obligations on drivers to checkweigh three loads a week.
Pat Conn, A One's Felixstowe branch manager, said that every overseas container collected from the docks was weighed.
McGee said that A One had been acquired in 1987. Since then a whole range of new procedures had been introduced and he now had "hands-on control".
Granting the licence, Boyd said that he did so without hesitation. He had been extremely impressed by the comprehensive systems and the effect they were having. A One was clearly a professional operator and they must be congratulated on "pulling themselves up by their bootlaces", he added.