A HIGHLAND haulage company has been banned for five years over a string of "serious failures" including operating one vehicle 20 times without a valid tax disc.
Lochaber Transport Ltd, based in Torlundy but originally set up in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, was criticised for unsatisfactory maintenance records and failing to notify the Traffic Commissioner about key financial issues.
These included the sequestration of company director, Stewart MacCallum, several changes in director and the creation of a corporate voluntary arrangement to pay off debts after income from transporting consignments of fish from Bellshill, Lanarkshire, to France fell.
A public inquiry also heard how one of their vehicles had been operated on 20 occasions without a valid tax disc, covering a distance of 7,519 miles, despite a driver alerting bosses to the problem.
Joan Aitken, the Traffic Commissioner for Scotland, said: "Only now in 2014 am I beginning to learn something of what was going on. This simply will not do and goes straight to repute. Also it simply will not do to so woefully fall down in meeting the requirements of the licence undertakings."
Mr MacCallum has been disqualified from holding or applying for an operator's licence for five years, although Ms Aitken said he was "not at the very worst end of operator behaviour".
The company's former transport manager, Gordon Campbell, was also stripped of his licence for three years after Ms Aitken ruled he was "no longer of good repute or professional competence".
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