An Edinburgh waste firm will have to operate with just one vehicle for four months after Scotland’s Traffic Commissioner criticised its “amateur” and “neglectful” approach.
Joan Aitken said government inspectors found the company to be “in disarray” when it came to vehicle safety inspections and the location where its trucks were supposed to be parked.
During a public inquiry, the firm’s director, Andrew Lindsay, accepted there had been a lack of management control and said he was shocked and dismayed at the company’s position.
The Traffic Commissioner heard that Mr Lindsay had admitted to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) that he played no part in the day-to-day running of the business and had left this to his son, Julian, who had no experience of operating HGVs.
The company came to the attention of DVSA examiners after one of its vehicles was stopped in Edinburgh on 22 August last year. The vehicle was prohibited for braking defects and also found to be out of test. Records confirmed the MOT had expired on 30 June 2016.
In a written decision issued after the hearing, Miss Aitken remarked:
“The operation had moved and that had not been authorised through a variation and the Examiner had the inconvenience of having gone to an operating centre no longer in use. Long standing drivers were expected to organise the maintenance arrangements but there was no proper arrangement with any contractor and vehicles were not being presented timeously and scant, if any record keeping.
“All in all the husbanding of the licence undertakings was amateurish and neglectful. I am not in the slightest doubt that such an amateur neglectful approach would have persisted but for DVSA’s intervention.”
