Hired trailers are OK
Page 18
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• A Surrey operator has been granted authority to operate trailers with their operating centre specified as "that of their owner" as the firm does not own any trailers and hires them as needed.
Rupert and Nicholas Carter, trading as C C Express Hay & Straw Services of Lucas Green, West End, had applied to South Eastern Licensing Authority Randall Thornton for a licence for four vehicles and two trailers. The application was opposed by Surrey County Council and Surrey Heath Borough COuncil.
The partners, with Robert Carter, were directors of Cosy Company Pet Produce, which had been authorised to operate five vehicles from the site from 1980 to December 1985 when it went into liqui
dation. Rupert and Robert Carter were directors of CC Express Freight Services which, though licensed for an opeating centre at Woking, had kept vehicles at Lucas Green. That company went into liquidation in January 1986.
The partners application was lodged in March and they were granted an interim licence in June. Another operator, M L Hunt, was licensed to use a 16 tonne tipper from the site.
Access to the operating centre is by a narrow and winding track. Nicholas Carter maintained that their 16 tonne vehicles and tractor units could negotiate the track with care. He gave an undertaking never to take trailers to the site and said the the partners were willing to be bound by condi
tions relating to the times and use imposed on Hunt's licence.
The objectors argued that since the partners had operated vehicles without a licence of any kind between January and June they were not of good repute and were unfit to hold a licence. Carter maintained that after December 1985 they had operated under one or other of Cosy Company and Express Freight licences. Both companies were controlled by Robert Carter who had disappeared in about March 1986 and is thought to have left the country.
Granting a licence for four vehicles and two trailers for two years Mr Thornton said that though the partners did not have "entirely clean .hands" he did not think their record in the absence of any convictions for unauthorised use was such to make them unfit or to remove their good repute.
Though he concluded the track was not suitable for regular use by heavy goods vehicles and the passage of such vehicles caused environ mental prejudice to property owners along its length, there was no grounds for finding that the use of the operating centre as such had any direct adverse environmental effects.
The licence would have the same conditions as Hunt's and was on the understanding that no trailers be brought to the operating centre at any time. In effect it would not be an approved operating centre for trailers. However the licence had to include trailers because an operator who had trailers was responsible for them when pulling them and must be authorised to operate them. In this case the operating centre for the trailers will be that of their owners.