Hilton firm loses 42-vehicle margin
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• Gomms Transport Ltd of Cardiff, taken over by the Ralph Hilton Transport Group in January, had its margin of 42 vehicles removed by the South Wales LA when the company appeared under Section 69 last week in Cardiff.
Mr T. H. Campbell Wardlaw, representing the firm, referred to prohibitions placed on six vehicles and one trailer between August last year and March, 1972. In addition, since a letter from the LA in April, a further vehicle and trailer had been issued with delayed prohibitions. The company, said Mr Campbell Wardlaw, was an old-established concern and before its recent takeover had been part of the Bain and Hodge Group which was itself part of BOC.
At the time of the takeover an inspection of the vehicles was carried out by Hilton and 12 of the vehicles were immediately taken off the road. Every effort, it was stated, was made to put repairs on a proper basis. There was a staff of 13 to maintain the 97 vehicles specified out of 145 vehicles authorized.
Mr B. H. Gray, a director of Hilton and responsible for the company's affairs in the South West and South Wales said he wished to operate an additional six vehicles from next week and a further 25 vehicles within the next 12 months. Mr Gray said that Mr A. Dennis, appointed in February, was responsible for the inspection of all the Group's vehicles and had the authority to put vehicles off the road. Day-to-day repairs were carried out by their own staff but major repairs and overhauls were done by two Cardiff garages. Phased replacernent of vehicles was now being discussed and 23 old trailers had now been replaced by 20 new ones. More maintenance staff were also being sought.
Mr M. Cole, Hilton technical director, said the facilities were now much better and more improvements were also planned. He agreed with the LA that the RI-IA inspection forms used now were the same as those previously used by Gomms.
In his final address to the LA, Mr Campbell Wardlaw asked that it be borne in mind that there were now new owners of Gomms and that positive steps had been taken to put matters right. The company had been fully aware of the problems and efforts had been made to correct these. He asked the LA not to interfere with the licence, which would end in 1976.
The LA, Mr R. R. Jackson, said it would be quite wrong to take no action in this case, although he had been impressed by the seriousness that had been taken and the quality of the representatives called. He decided to remove the margin of 42 vehicles but not to interfere with the 77 trailers. The licence would now authorize 106 vehicles and 77 trailers.