Scaffolding firm found inefficient pending one of the three vehicles
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authorised to Swansea-based Dragon Scaffolding (Wales) for six months, South Wales Traffic Commissioner John Mervyn Pugh told the company that it did not know what it was doing in relation to the operation of heavy goods vehicles.
The company had been called before the Commissioner at a Cardiff disciplinary inquiry following the issue of a prohibition notice to one of its vehicles indicating a significant maintenance failure.
For the company, Paul Carless said that the prohibition notice had been issued because a disc brake was found to be completely missing.
Carless told the inquiry that this was a design fault rather than a failure of the company's maintenance system.
The TC pointed out that blanks in suggested letters to drivers and fitters outlining their responsibilities had not been filled in, and on occasion the stated interval between inspections of one month had been extended to three months.
Carless said that two vehicles had fresh test certificates and the third was undergoing a major engine overhaul. He agreed that the company "needed pulling together" but he stressed that there had not been any annual test failures and that it now had a grip on the situation.
General manager Roger Smith said that he had inherited the running of the vehicles. Only a part-time weekend fitter had been looking after them previously but the company now had a full-time fitter and the period between inspections had been reduced from six weeks to four.
Suspending the vehicle, Mervyn Pugh said there had been gross inefficiency throughout. He added that the company had a lot to learn and it was lucky that it had not had its licence suspended in its entirety