The senior traffic commissioner (STC) is consulting on plans to amend statutory guidance, closing a loophole that enables hauliers to ‘draw down’ HGVs not specified on an O-licence.
The move was prompted by a recent decision in the Upper Tribunal concerning a company swapping vehicles on and off its licence.
The tribunal found that Connor Construction ‘was routinely, and as a business practice, using more vehicles in the operation of its business than it was seemingly authorised to do under the licence, but was using the operator licensing system to swap vehicles on and off the licence’.
The Upper Tribunal ruled that this ran counter to core principles of the legislation, such as the requirement for finance and for maintenance and for a sufficient operating centre.
