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Licence suspended after firm runs too many trucks
Page 20
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Using an unauthorised operating centre and running more vehicles than permitted has led to a month-long licence suspension for a Surrey-based firm.
Lumadan Services' application to increase its Operator's Licence agreement from two to seven vehicles and for the use of a new operating centre in Ewell, was opposed by Surrey County Council because of difficulties over access.
On the first day of the Public Inquiry, director Richard Sutherland told the South Eastern & Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner Christopher Heaps that the company owned four vehicles but only two were being used.
However, he conceded that a vehicle not specified on the 0-licence had been used in April and that it had been using the site as an operating centre since June 2001.
The hearing was then adjourned for the TO to visit the site. The following day a further application was submitted for seven vehicles at an alternative operating centre in Croydon.
When the hearing resumed, VI enforcement officer David Whitcher detailed four prohibition notices relating to 12 mechanical defects and three weight breaches.
He said when Sutherland was interviewed he admitted the use of seven vehicles and the use of an overweight vehicle, A driver told him that he had received no instructions about the use of tachographs or the loading of vehicles. In December the company was convicted of four offences and fined .3,400.
Transport manager David Murton said that the period between inspections had been reduced as a result of' a road traffic accident. Weight sensors were planned for all vehicles and drivers had now been trained in their duties.
Sutherland conceded that the company had operated from Ewell without authority for 15 months or so. He also accepted that the company had a less than effective administration system during the period when there had been no transport manager.
The TC considered the Ewell site to be unsuitable but granted permission for the use of the Croydon site for two vehicles. He warned that any further unauthorised use was likely to forfeit repute.