A West Midlands-based scrap metal firm has had its restricted goods vehicles operator’s licence revoked, after failing to make sure its vehicles had safety inspections.
B Shakespeare & Co Ltd, based in Brierley Hill, had its licence revoked as of 1 September following a public inquiry on 23 July in Birmingham.
Brierley Hill-based scrap metal firm, B Shakespeare & Co Ltd, has had its restricted goods vehicles operator’s licence revoked
A restricted licence allows an operator to carry its own goods, but not other people’s goods. The licence has been revoked for eight of the company’s vehicles.
Safety checks
For over 12 months, B Shakespeare & Co Ltd did not have any safety checks carried out on its fleet, according to the Traffic Commissioner.
At the public inquiry, traffic Commissioner, Nick Denton, called the state of affairs “wholly unacceptable”.
Present were company director David Shakespeare, Graham Timmings the company fitter, transport administrator Louise Plant and transport consultant J Crompton. Consultant Paul Carless senior represented the company. Also present was vehicle examiner Neil Lloyd-Bowen.
As well as failing to carry out routine inspections, DVSA examiner Mr Lloyd-Bowen found other issues, including:
- an S marked prohibition (denoting a serious failure in the maintenance system)
- stretched safety inspections
- no driver defect reporting system
- high prohibition and MOT failure rates
Driver defects
Among the specific issues highlighted by the Traffic Commissioner, was that drivers are “failing to identity obvious defects”. “Where defects are identified, nothing is done about them as (almost unbelievably) there is no system to ensure that defect reports reach the fitter and are acted upon,” Mr Denton said.
Mr Denton also found that drivers are “committing various infringements” in regards to drivers’ hours and tachograph rules. “There is no system to bring these to their attention,” he said.
“No missing mileage reports were produced at the inquiry, despite my request that they be so,” added Mr Denton.
At the inquiry, one of the firm’s directors, Mr Shakespeare, said his in-house fitter had been on “long-term sick leave”. But, he didn’t take any action until the following year, according to the Traffic Commissioner.
The director also admitted he had not realised the vehicles needed to be inspected regularly.
Mr Denton said he had taken “little if any trouble” to understand what was required and to make sure it was done.
Balancing
Despite noting that servicing firm, CVT, is now being used for all maintenance (not just identifying defects) and vehicles are moving towards being inspected every four, on balancing, Mr Denton said that the negative issues “heavily outweigh the positive ones”.
“The complete abandonment of preventative maintenance inspections over a period of at least 12 months is an act of severe negligence and dereliction, with potential harmful impacts on the safety of both the operator’s drivers and other road users.”
Nick Denton
Traffic Commissioner
The commissioner added: “The complete abandonment of preventative maintenance inspections over a period of at least 12 months is an act of severe negligence and dereliction, with potential harmful impacts on the safety of both the operator’s drivers and other road users.”
In his conclusions, Mr Denton said he had “zero confidence in Mr Shakespeare’s ability to run a compliant operation”.
“If the company were to apply for an operator’s licence in future, I would need to find a very different and much improved compliance culture and level of knowledge in order to consider the application favourably,” he added.
B Shakespeare & Co
B Shakespeare & Co Ltd reports to be one of the largest independent scrap processors in the UK, specialising in factory clearances, from large industrial plants through to small engineering workshops.
A comment has been requested from B Shakespeare & Co Ltd.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Metal
