Reduced to one truck at a time
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A Derbyshire haulage company has appeared at its second disciplinary inquiry in two
&re years because of continuing maintenance problems. The authorisation on the licence held by Biggin-based GB Webster was reduced from eight vehicles and two traders to four vehicles and one trailer at a public inquiry in February 1997. Since then two prohibition notices had been imposed with a number of convictions.
Vehicle examiner John Moss said that over the past five years eight immediate and four delayed prohibitions had been imposed on the company's vehicles with four variation notices. When he examined
the one vehicle and trailer now in possession in September they were generally in a satisfactory condition. But there were no inspection records between 10 March and 5 September; Moss was told that the vehicle had been off the road.
Maintenance was contracted out to a commercial garage and the contractor had said that the vehicle was not presented for inspection on a regular basis but rather when the operator felt like it. Managing director George Webster said that sometimes when he rang the commercial garage to book the vehicle in he was told there was no mechanic or inspection pit available.
North Western Traffic Commissioner Keith Waterworth said that if Webster did not stick to the four-week inspection period the licence would eventually be revoked and he would be ejected from the industry Asked about one prohibition notice, Webster said he had been unaware that the load sensing valve had been disconnected. That had led to the convictions at Chesterfield in December for maintenancerelated offences. After the TC had pointed out that one of the convictions was for the fraudulent use of a vehicle excise licence, Webster admitted that the wrong licence disc had been in the windscreen but added that the tax had already been applied for.
Webster agreed that the company had lost money in 1997, and the financial situation was not very good. Webster also said that was why they had reduced the size of the fleet. Cutting the licence to two vehicles and one trailer, the TC required an undertaking that only one vehicle and one trailer would be used at any one time.