A plant hire company has failed in its attempt to obtain an operator licence after the senior traffic commissioner heard how one of its lorries was issued with several prohibitions during its interim authority.
BM Plant Hire had convinced a deputy traffic commissioner to grant it an interim licence for one vehicle and one trailer while a finance review and compliance audit was carried out for full authorisation.
However, less than two weeks later, the Rickmansworth-based operator was issued with an S-marked prohibition and several other immediate and delayed prohibitions after the DVSA flagged down its lorry.
The enforcement agency then conducted a maintenance investigation into the company, which highlighted significant failures in its operation.
The vehicle also attracted three further prohibitions less than a month later, two of which were for driver detectable defects and so the senior TC Richard Turfitt put BM Plant Hire on notice he was considering revoking the interim licence.
Company director Brian Morrissey wrote to the TC’s office saying he was shocked by the incident as the vehicle had been presented for its annual test only a few weeks earlier and it had passed first time.
He requested a public inquiry so he could offer further assurances and protect his licence.
At the Cambridge hearing, Turfitt noted that the audit the company agreed to provide to the deputy TC had never been received and a vehicle examiner had found that preventative maintenance records inspection records failed to record the operator’s name, licence number and chassis numbers; odometer readings failed to specify where the record was in miles or kilometres and one record failed to show the vehicle model.
There was also a potential conflict of interest, as BM Plant Hire’s maintenance contractor was also its only customer.
In his written decision, the senior TC said: “On the basis of the evidence summarised above, and despite having been given extensive opportunities by the deputy traffic commissioner, the applicant was not in a position to satisfy me to the civil standard that it met sections [on] good repute, through the fitness of its director to ensure compliance with the basic requirements of an operator’s licence.”
He added: “For those reasons I refused this application.”
