William Burnett was ‘disorganised’ and had consistently ignored advice and legal requirements
The 60-vehicle O-Licence held by Smethwick-based William Burnett, trading as Bearwood Coaches, has been revoked by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Denton on grounds of repute and finance. In addition, the TC disqualified Mr Burnett from acting as a Transport Manager (TM) indefinitely.
At a previous Public Inquiry (PI) in 2018 the licence was curtailed to 40 vehicles because of maintenance issues. The licence was subsequently restored to 60 vehicles after a satisfactory audit. Assurances given at that PI had not been adhered to.
Vehicle Examiner (VE) Austin Jones told the TC that it was not disputed that vehicle maintenance was being carried out. The issue was records and it was a similar mirror picture to the previous year. Six vehicles were examined at each visit and no prohibitions issued.
Mr Burnett agreed that he had not kept assurances to ensure that vehicles would be inspected every eight weeks, that there would be printouts of roller brake tests three times a year, and that there would be printouts of three-monthly driver licence checks.
He said that since the VE’s visit he had changed the driver defect reporting system. He admitted that the drivers did not have a checklist and that they just put a tick if they found a defect without noting what the defect was [routeone/Court Report/9 October].
Making the revocation and disqualification orders, the TC said that Mr Burnett was clearly convinced that he ran the best operation in the business despite two unsatisfactory maintenance investigations and two PIs. His mind appeared entirely closed to the requirement to keep proper records and manage a business to modern compliance standards. He continued to reject well-meant advice from a variety of sources.
Mr Burnett needed to show financial standing of £270,550 for the 60 vehicles authorised. Because the two bank accounts showed average balances over different periods, not overlapping at all, and neither balance sufficient to demonstrate financial standing, he had failed to do that. That was entirely in keeping with his disorganised approach to any form of paperwork.
Record keeping was chaotic to non-existent. Vehicles were missing their eight-weekly checks which were inadequately documented when they did take place. Those shortcomings were pointed out to Mr Burnett in early 2018, but he had ignored all advice on how to address them. Further, he had failed to carry out most of the specific assurances given in July 2018. The fact that his assurances proved worthless necessarily devalued the assurances he was offering this time round. Mr Burnett was entirely dismissive of the views of others and utterly incapable of delegating to anyone else. He firmly believed his own way of doing things was best and the TC did not believe Mr Burnett was capable of change or of acting according to the standards required of a modern-day TM.
He had considered whether to allow a period of grace in which to appoint a new TM, and finally present the right financial evidence, but he had concluded that in practice there was no point as Mr Burnett was clearly never going to submit to the authority of another TM.
