Metro Concrete refused permission to operate vehicles

Regulator refuses licence application after director said he would rather take the risk of running illegally

SILVERTOWN-based concrete and aggregate suppliers Metro Concrete Ltd have been refused permission to operate commercial vehicles after one of the company’s directors said he would rather take the risk of operating illegally than wait until his application was granted and run his business into the ground.

Nick Denton, Traffic Commissioner for London and the South East, concluded there was ‘compelling evidence’ to suggest vehicles had been operated illegally while the firm’s application for an operator’s licence was under consideration.

Metro Concrete director Philip Fitzsimmons was told explicitly by a Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) examiner on 4 April 2016 that the company was operating a vehicle without the required licence.

Eleven days later, another vehicle being operated by the company was stopped by the Police.

Tachograph data and a driver defect report obtained from one of the firm’s vehicles revealed that a vehicle was also operated on at least seven days in March 2016. Additionally, the vehicle was displaying a disc for another operator’s licence which had been revoked in February 2016.

As part of its application correspondence, the business had been warned by the Central Licensing Office that it could not operate vehicles until the application had been granted.

Following a public inquiry earlier this month, which the company did not attend, Mr Denton said: ‘Because of this persistent illegal operation, in the face of both the written warnings and a verbal intervention by a traffic examiner, I find the applicant is not fit to hold a licence.’

Traffic Commissioners have the power to revoke, suspend or curtail an operator’s licence to operate commercial vehicles, if they are satisfied that the operator is failing to comply with its licence obligations, such as failing to maintain vehicles in a fit and serviceable condition or failing to observe the drivers’ hours’ rules and tachograph regulations.