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TC says firm deserved to lose Western licence
Page 20
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Leggett Freightways has received a three-month disqualification in one traffic area for using an operating centre illegally. Mike Jewell reports.
An Enfield-based haulage firm with depots across the UK has been handed a three-month ban from operating in the Western Traffic Area after it admitted using an operating centre illegally, despite a previous conviction for the same offence.
Leggett Freightways, trading as Leggett Logistics, has also had its director, Harold Linney, banned from holding or obtaining an 0-licence in the Western area for three months.
The disqualification, which will take effect at the end of September, has been handed down by Western Traffic Commissioner Philip Brown.
Inquiry in Bristol -lbecompany,which holds a licence in the Western Area for 16 vehicles and 42 trailers, appeared before a Bristol disciplinary inquiry where maintenance was also an issue.
Linney told the inquiry that Leggett had commenced operation from Bridgwater. Somerset in December 2003.
However, he said that it had "slipped his mind" that it had no authority to use that depot. He admitted that Leggett did not even have interim authority to operate from the site, but said that closing the depot would have meant the loss of jobs and business, particularly as the firm had a major client. Argos, based in Bridgwater.
It also had clients in Devon and Cornwall, said Linney. whom it could not now get to in the permitted driving time from its other West Country depot, in Swindon.
The TC was also told of maintenance problems at Bridgwater and informed that advice given had not been acted upon.
Linney said the Bridgwater depot manager had been given a written warning for not following procedures,which themselves had now been revised.
Leggett had recently asked the RHA to do a systems audit which had shown areas where paperwork needed tightening up. Part of the problem had been a blurring of management responsibility. Two regional managers had since been appointed and these were being made directors of the company.
Repute has been lost Revoking the licence on the grounds the company had lost its repute, the TC said that what appeared to he a continued unauthorised use of an operating cen tre went to the very heart of the operator licensing system.
The company had failed to comply with the rules, even after being advised of the requirements to obtain licence authorisation.
While the failure might not have been deliberate to begin with. Linney had accepted that he knew what should be done but took no action to remedy the position until applied to use the Bridgwater site in September 2005.
Taking account of Linney's evidence, which indicated a continued flouting of the rules, the TC concluded that the company deserved to lose its Western licence.
Disqualifying both Linney and the company, he said that because Linney accepted that he should have known about the illegal activity and did in fact know about it, to the extent that the company was continuing to operate illegally at the date of the public inquiry, he took the view that it was entirely proportionate to disqualify both.
Limiting the period of disqualification to three months, he expressed the hope that any future 0-licence application made either by the company or by Linney would meet with full compliance.
Leggett holds licences in every Traffic Area with an operational fleet of 110 vehicles and 250 trailers. Action could now follow across the country. •