The O-licence held by Brian Finch, trading as F E Finch Coaches of Wigan, will be revoked with effect from 2359hrs on July 20, 2018.
The decision of Traffic Commissioner (TC) for the North West of England, Simon Evans, follows a Public Inquiry (PI) held on June 13, 2018.
The inquiry was called following an adverse maintenance inspection at which a DVSA Vehicle Examiner issued an S-marked prohibition for a defective tyre.
Concerns were also expressed about the effectiveness and adequacy of maintenance standards.
In its written response at the time, the operator offered assurances that a third party contractor would inspect vehicles after the operator had conducted its own check in order to ‘ensure standards are met.’ However at the PI, there was no material evidence that such checks had been carried out.
The TC was also told that the operator’s business became a partnership three or four years ago but no application to obtain a new licence in that entity has been made.
Reaching his decision, Mr Evans noted that the maintenance issue was an isolated incident with no previous offending history, and sufficient and effective changes had been made.
The operator had co-operated with enforcement investigation and had an above average first time pass at MOT.
In the negative, he noted that negligent acts by the operator had led to undue risk to road safety, and there was ineffective management control and insufficient or no systems and procedures in place to prevent O-licence compliance failings.
He also took into account the readiness of Mr Finch to resign as transport manager.
The TC concluded that Mr Finch had spread himself too thinly across the business, not sharing responsibility with Paul Schofield who is a CPC holder himself, and failed to carry through all of the steps which had been designed to provide assurance to DVSA.
He concluded the licence must be revoked, since licences are not transferable between entities.
The TC concluded by a narrow margin that repute as an operator was retained.
