Chips are down for potato merchant: no O licence until 201815 November 2017

An Oswestry-based potato merchant has been denied an operating licence until January 2018, after running vehicles illegally for 18 months under another licence.

At a public inquiry on 24 October in Birmingham, West Midlands traffic commissioner Nick Denton also told Gary Williams – owner of Gary Williams Potato Supplies – that he must attend an operator licence management course.

The regulator also ruled that the company needs to employ a transport manager, even though this is not a mandatory requirement for the restricted licence it applied for.

Denton accepted that Williams thought arrangements with another operator, David Harper trading as Weston Garage, were acceptable on a temporary basis, but should have realised that Harper could not be considered the operator of his vehicles.

“Even though it was the de facto operator of two vehicles, the applicant exercised no control over drivers’ hours, with the result that one driver working for it has been committing numerous and serious infringements,” Denton added.

The regulator acknowledged that Williams had been honest about the situation, but said that he could not be confident about the company applying the rules correctly if a licence was issued now – without the employment of a CPC qualified transport manager.

David Harper’s O licence will also be revoked on 21 November and he is disqualified for three months.

Author
Laura Cork

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