An Essex-based haulage operator has had its licence revoked after using an unauthorised operating centre. KS Transporters (UK) had also traded for months without a transport manager before its attendance was requested before traffic commissioner Richard Turfitt at a Cambridge public inquiry.

The company’s director Rajeev Ramasamy sought to nominate himself as transport manager following the departure of the previous one in February. However, shortly after making his application, evidence emerged that the haulier’s vehicles were no longer parking at the authorised operating centre in Stanford-Le-Hope.

The allegations were put to Ramasamy and so he requested a period of grace, before requesting a PI when a proposal to revoke the licence was sent to him. The director wrote to the TC explaining that when he began operating as KS Transporters, he relied on an operating centre that was used by vehicles at a previous company of which he had been director. However, he did not seek the authorisation of the centre’s owner, DP World, and when it asked him to vacate the site, Ramasamy moved his lorries to another location in Swanscombe without notifying the TC of the change.

In his written decision, TC Turfitt said the operator had not appeared at the PI and was now trying to wind up his business: “Its request for a public inquiry resembles a device to delay intervention and gain a potential commercial advantage,” the TC said. “That conduct is inconsistent with future compliance and would necessitate its removal from the industry in any event.”