Brora Transport Ltd's licence revoked

Brora Transport Ltd has had its licence revoked by the Traffic Commissioner for Scotland, Joan Aitken, for breaching financial conditions imposed when the licence was granted.

The company, of Spoutie Burn, Brora, was granted an operators licence in August 2010 on condition that the owners provided the Traffic Commissioner with financial details including bank statements that show it has access to sufficient funds.

The Traffic Commissioner called Brora Transport to a Public Inquiry in Inverness on 19 August this year when the company failed to meet that condition.

Directors Scott Edward Mackay and Liam Mackay - a third generation of the family - had set up Brora Transport as part of succession planning within the Mackay family business.

The brothers told the inquiry that they both believed that directors' guarantees on finance would be sufficient to satisfy that licence condition - advice they had taken from their grandfather Edward Mackay who has been in the industry for 50 years. They said funds were in place and they could give further evidence of financial standing if required.

Mrs Aitken said she could not accept that submission, and could not trust that these were funds of Brora Transport Ltd nor could she trust that the company would have continuous financial standing.

The Inquiry heard that Brora Transport operates its own vehicles but the drivers are employed jointly by Edward Mackay, who pays the wages. The drivers are instructed by Scott Mackay. Edward Mackay Contracts Ltd pays the fuel - a legacy of the difficulty Brora Transport had when it first set up in getting credit from fuel companies. The cost of the drivers' wages are charged to Brora Transport.

Mrs Aitken was invited not to revoke the licence but to give a severe warning - the directors being fully aware of the seriousness of the case.

Revoking the licence from 11 October 2011, Mrs Aitken said she was in no doubt that the licence condition had been breached and there had not been continuous financial standing in the company since the licence was granted.

"Having heard the evidence at the Public Inquiry it appears to me that the vehicles are being operated using the finances of Edward Mackay Contractors Ltd or Edward Mackay and that there are no funds in Brora Transport Ltd which could be called its own funds," she said.

Mrs Aitken said she considered the breach of licence condition to be a serious one. "Requirements of the licensing regime have not been taken seriously by this operator's directors," she said. "They cannot hide behind the purported advice from their grandfather to the extent to which they attempted at the Public Inquiry, given that my Office from January onwards was telling them that their arrangements were not proper."

She added: "I consider it proportionate that I revoke the licence on grounds of that breach. I am fortified in this view given that the arrangements for payment of drivers and fuel and such like point to this operator not being in control, in a financial sense, of the transport operation."

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