Atlas gets 18 month warning
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• Maintenance problems have led to the 10-vehicle PSV operator's licence of Leonard Waldrum and Claud Grange, trading as Atlas Coaches of Nottingham, being renewed for 18 months only by Eastern Deputy Traffic Commissioner Cordelia Brock.
Brock said that following a letter from the then chairman, Kenneth Peter, in 1984, expressing disquiet about the firm's maintenance, the partners had submitted a fresh maintenance agreement with Skills Coaches and given written undertakings that inspections would be carried out monthly and would show mileages and the date of inspection.
Vehicle examiner Alan Burton said that in March he found the firm's maintenance records to be sparse. The periods between inspections were not being complied with and the mileage was missing from many of the records.
He inspected four vehicles issuing one immediate and three delayed prohibition notices.
A further visit on June 24 showed that the records were still not at the required intervals and mileages were not being recorded.
He examined four vehicles and issued four defect notices. The only time vehicles appeared to go into Skills was immediately before an annual test.
Waldnun said that according to that they had the biggest load of junk in the Midlands, which was surprising in view of the amount of business they obtained.
Grange said it was not as had as it seemed. He did not believe that there was a coach on the road which did not have defects. No one could keep vehicles free of faults.
He maintained that there was nothing dangerous on any of the vehicles. The reason they had not kept an agreement with Skills was that Skills had had troubles of its own after its engineers had left.
John Waldrum, the son of one of the partners, said they now had a fresh agreement with Skills. The percentage of defects to the amount of work carried out was small_ He accepted that the record keeping in the past had been lax and he had taken the vehicle examiner's advice.
After Brock asked what guarantee she could have that the new maintenance agreement would be kept, Waldnim said they now had a wall chart as a visual aid. They were so busy in the Summer that it was easy to miss inspection dates when the records were just filed away.
Renewing the licence for 18 months only, Brock said that the vehicles had been in a disgraceful state. The firm had failed to keep to past undertakings.
During the next 18 months she expected them to do what was required of them in November 1984, which was to honour the signed undertakings.
She expects proper maintenance and repairs to be carried out. If she finds the firm fails to carry out any of its undertakings in 18 months time, the licence will be in jeopardy.