Rogues be damned
Page 3
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True phoenix companies and their more legalvariants rising from pre-pack administrations are never far off the industry's radar and this week both the RHA and the Senior TO have pushed them to the top of the agenda 'see p6).
It's reassuring to see the Road Haulage Association making its membership rules more stringent, effectively vetting applications for membership from phoenix companies. Furthermore, we welcome Phitip Brown's statement that a set of guidelines covering how TOs should deal with applications from such businesses is being drawn up. The sooner, the better, we say.
There have been some questionable decisions recently in which TCs seemed swayed by the job-saving arguments put forward by the recently collapsed operators before them. -Refuse my licence application for my resurrected business under a slightly different name and all triese drivers will be redundant, and that vvill hurt the local economyseemed to be the plea put forward and, a little too frequently for our tastes, it worked.
Well, hopefully that won't happen again. We have every sympathy for operators forced out of business through no fault of their own, but the directors of operators that have a record of failing to run profitably and who finally get caught out have no place in our industry. The greater industry cannot afford for these businesses to be resurrected. Deadlines being what they ace, this issue went to press before the election. To find out the industry's reaction to the result, go to www.roadtransport.cem.
Justin Stanton p"'"6""k