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of Sussex timber haulier
Page 23
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A Sussex timber haulier has succeeded in getting the three-month suspension of one of its trucks quashed by the Transport Tribunal.
Abbeycheer, based in Whitesmith near Lewes, had appealed against the decision of South Eastern & Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner Christopher Heaps to suspend the vehicle on the grounds that it was being kept at an unauthorised operating centre in Kent. The Tribunal has directed that the matter be reconsidered by a different TC.
Evidence was given before the TC that the vehicle concerned had been observed by police parked at three different sites in Langton Green on 14 occasions between October 2001and April 2002.
Tachograph charts later demonstrated that the vehicle had commenced or finished its journey in Langton Green on 77 occasions between May 2001 and April 2002.
Before the Tribunal, James Duckworth, for the company, argued that the TC had failed to properly find that any of the locations in Langton Green was an 'operating centre' at which the vehicle was normally kept. His finding that lay-bys in Langton Green had been used
as an operating centre was not sufficiently specific.
Duckworth said that the company should have been given the opportunity of commenting on the tachograph analysis before the TC made his findings. The TC had failed to ask where in his traffic area the vehicle was normally kept, and Duckworth said that his client used Langton Green as a place to stop when the truck was in Kent.
Agreeing with those arguments, the Tribunal said that the tachograph analysis had failed to provide the TC with any information on where the vehicle had been located on the nights when it was not at Langton Green. In particular, the analysis failed to show the number of days thE the vehicle was parked at th operating centre.
The TC did appear to hay applied the wrong test, said th Tribunal. The fact that the veh de was normally kept E Langton Green when in Ker may not have a bearing on th matter.
Finally, the Tribum agreed with Duckworth' argument that it wa wrong for the TC to mak the curtailment orde without making appropri ate inquiries as to it effect on the company' business.