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Ten vehicle suspension for Southern BRS
Page 40
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• Southern BRS Ltd had 10 vehicles suspended for one month by the deputy South Eastern LA, Mr G. C. Mercer, at a public inquiry in Maidstone on Thursday of last week, because of poor maintenance. But the company's application under Section 68 of the Transport Act 1968, to add 144 vehicles and 39 vehicles in possession and 46 vehicles and 80 trailers to be acquired, to its licence was granted in full.
BRS had been called to public inquiry to show reason why its own licence for 571 vehicles and 753 trailers and that of BRS (Contracts) Ltd for 190 vehicles and 119 trailers should not be curtailed, suspended or revoked following a number of prohibitions issued between 1970 and 1973 and six convictions for various offences during the period.
For BRS, Mr David Keene said that the number of prohibitions should be regarded in the context of the number of vehicles which the company operated and the size of its operation. When this was done the number of prohibitions did not appear to be as serious as might at first be thought. The company had suffered from the prevailing shortage of skilled maintenance staff and in addition had been the subject of a major reorganization last year.
Vehicle examiners Stirling and Sorkins gave evidence of fleet inspections at the company's Stroud and Aylesford depots in November last year where prohibitions were imposed on one vehicle and four vehicles respectively.
Mr Stirling said that the vehicle at Strood, where there were eight skilled and four semiskilled fitters, did not appear to have been subject to a preventive maintenance check for about three months.
Mr Sorkins said that there were eight skilled fitters and one semi-skilled man at Aylesford together with one apprentice. After imposing one immediate and three delayed GV9s he inspected the record which showed that vehicles on which prohibitions had been imposed had been given preventive maintenance checks only recently. This suggested that the system of maintenance was not satisfactory, he thought.
In answer to questions from Mr Keene, Mr Jack Mather, managing director of Southern BRS, explained that the reorganization of BRS Ltd, last year, which had resulted in the formation of Southern BRS Ltd had had, as one of its objectives, the tightening up of control by local management in a number of areas of the company's business. Maintenance was one of these areas.
Since last November, when the fleet inspections had taken place and on which the court' s attention had been focussed, some depots had been closed and management at local level had been given more responsibility for, among other things, the state of its vehicles.
The company engineer, Mr Alan Gray, said that, in general, the company's vehicles were examined every four weeks but low mileage vehicles might be scheduled for a sixweekly inspection and those on arduous work could be inspected every week. It all depended on what the vehicle was doing and the inspection period was at the branch manager's discretion. However, there was also a system of reporting to his own organization at company headquarters which should ensure that a vehicle would not exceed its inspection period.
Giving his decision, Mr Mercer said that it appeared, at first sight, that the company had a bad record of maintenance. After listening to the explanation by Southern BRS of its difficulties he thought that the position was not as bad as it first appeared. Under Section 69, he had to have regard to the undertaking given by the operator when making application for the licence and he felt that, in this case, the suspension of five vehicles from each of the licences would be appropriate.
Under Section 68, however, he had to consider matters of a different nature which included the future development of the applicant's business. He therefore agreed to grant the application for further vehicles in possession and to be acquired to be added to the licence of Southern BRS Ltd in full. This would have the effect of transferring vehicles from the BRS (Contracts) Ltd licence to that of Southern BRS Ltd.