A bid for a new five-vehicle national licence by Carrie McKendry and her sister Tracy Lander, trading as McKendry Coaches – based in Loanhead – has been turned down by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Joan Aitken.
Their father Douglas McKendry had his licence revoked in 2004 and an application by Mr McKendry in partnership with his wife, Ann, was refused. His wife was subsequently granted a licence – trading as McKendry Coaches – subject to a condition that Mr McKendry was not to be engaged in the management of the operation.
In March 2016, the estate of Mrs McKendry was sequestrated and, as a result, her licence terminated. The Office of the Traffic Commissioner then received the application from the sisters and the nominated Transport Manager (TM) was Nicola McCallum (formerly McKendry) who had since died.
In refusing to return two impounded coaches, the TC found that neither Mr McKendry nor Miss McKendry owned them. She concluded that they were owned by a partnership, McKendry Coaches, whose members were Mr McKendry and his wife.
She also considered that both McKendrys knew that that the two coaches were being used without the necessary PSV O-Licence, and she found that Mr McKendry continued to be involved in the day-to-day running of McKendry Coaches.
She also referred to the very clear warning supplied to the sisters that, until a licence was granted, their partnership had no authority to operate PSVs. She found that an unlicensed operation was carried on by a partnership whose members were Mr McKendry and his wife. The TC’s decision was upheld by the Upper Tribunal on appeal [routeone/Court Report/23 November 2016].
The McKendrys sought leave to appeal to the Court of Session against the Tribunal’s decision. Leave was refused and the McKendrys were ordered to pay the costs of the Advocate General in responding to the claim [routeone/Court Report/14 March]. Following that decision, the TC considered the sisters application at an Edinburgh Public Inquiry (PI). The TC refused a request to withdraw the application and no one attended the hearing.
In her decision, the TC said that this was not a straightforward application. It claimed to be from Miss McKendry and Mrs Lander, yet Mr McKendry’s email was given, and his name was on the bank documentation as if the bank understood there to be a partnership of him and Miss McKendry. That was resonant of the on/off partnership arrangements between Mr and Miss McKendry, which they changed over when it suited them.
James McDonald, a person who would never now pass the test of repute for a licence, had continued as a presence in the McKendry activities. He was bound up in the Ann McKendry sequestration responses, the unlawful operation, the confused and misleading representations to her at a PI and the time-wasting, hopeless appeals to the Upper Tribunal and Court of Session. His involvement in the financing of this application was not one she could accept.
Miss McKendry and Mrs Lander were aware of the continued operation after Ann McKendry’s sequestration. That deprived them of repute. If she granted this application, the TC would not know who would be actually operating.
The sad demise of Mrs McCallum deprived the application of a TM.
