Catto licence left untouched
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• No action has been taken against the licence of T M Catto (Transport) of Aberdeen following its appearance before Scottish Deputy Licensing Authority Alex Brand for a failure to report convictions for overloading. Brand has renewed the company's international licence for 39 vehicles and 38 trailers for the full term.
The DLA was told the company had failed to disclose 12 convictions for overloading because managing director Thomas Catto had neglected to keep any records.
Reg Christie, for the company, said it had been lack of care rather than deliberate intention to breach the licence conditions and withhold information.
When the offences arose the papers had been passed to the Road Haulage Association who engaged lawyers to deal with them in whatever area they had arisen. In Catto's mind the matter had been finished once the papers were passed to the RHA.
Giving an assurance there would be no repetition, Christie said that the company was now employing its own lawyer to deal with any cases that might arise.
The offences themselves were mainly in respect of axle overloads. The majority of the company's work was the multidrop delivery of meat. That made it difficult to distribute the weight evenly and there were problems in stopping the meat moving inside the trucks.
Outlining the steps taken, Christie said Catto was halfway through replacing its 24 four-wheelers with sixwheelers. Meanwhile the four-wheelers were only loaded up to 15 tonnes instead of 16.5 tonnes. Customers had been requested to specify weights in kilos rather than pounds to avoid confusion, and drivers had been asked to report when customers put extra on a vehicle.
Saying that he accepted the explanations given, Brand said that though Catto may not have understood the rules in the past, he was certainly aware of them now.