Veale: month suspension
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• Claude Veale, trading as Veales Transport of Long Sutton, near Spalding has had his licence for 11 vehicles and 14 trailers suspended for the month of November, by Eastern Deputy Licensing Authority Humphrey Lewis.
In 1986, maintenance problems led to the then Licensing Authority John Mervyn Pugh prematurely terminating the licence so that it only had four months to run.
Vehicle examiner Paul Cowan said there was considerable improvement after the Freight Transport Association was contracted to carry out monthly inspections, interspersed with inspections by Veale's own staff. However, the situation had again deteriorated, with eight immediate and eight delayed prohibitions and seven defect notices.
Cowan said that three of the prohibitions were subsequently varied. In July 1988, a vehicle with defective brakes was involved in an accident in West Yorkshire. The brakes were thought to have been a contributory cause, and Veale was prosecuted. The F1'A had reported the vehicle's brakes as defective in April and in July.
A maintenance investigation followed in November 1988, which revealed that excessive time was still elapsing before defects were repaired. The FTA inspections had been cut to four a year. Two fitters were employed, one of whom was mainly involved in driving.
Veale said that drivers were reporting defects verbally. There had been no complaint about the brakes from the driver of the vehicle involved in the accident.
Suspending the licence, Lewis said there had been a complete failure to run the business in an efficient way. Veale had been given the plainest of warnings by Mervyn Pugh in 1986, yet things were as bad as ever. Suspension was appropriate in this case. If it meant the end of the business, Veale had only himself to blame.