City dairy fined £10,000
Released: 14 August 2007
A Wolverhampton dairy which persistently overloaded its delivery wagons has been fined £10,000 by city Magistrates at a hearing held today, Tuesday, August 14th.
The Court heard that Wolverhampton City Council Trading Standards Officers and West Midlands Police Traffic Officers carried out an early morning targeted weight check codename ‘Operation Ernie’ on February 1st, 2007.
This followed complaints that a range of early morning delivery vehicles were regularly seen in an overloaded condition.
Of eight vehicles checked three belonged to city firm Johal Dairies Ltd. of Cannock Road. The vehicles exceeded the legal maximum by 40%, 34% and 22%.
The vehicle drivers had to reduce their load to the legal maximum before being allowed to continue with their deliveries. Johal delivery vehicles were found to be overloaded on two more occasions later in February (by 33%) and in May of this year (by 7%).
Johal Dairies did not attend the hearing and the city council proved all five offences in the company’s absence. District Judge Brown was satisfied that the company were repeat offenders who had failed to offer any explanation for any the vehicles being overloaded.
The city council provided evidence of their previous overloading conviction in August 2006 where Wolverhampton Magistrates imposed fines totalling £4,750.
The council provided evidence that that the company had declared pre tax operating profits of £600,000 in the year ended September 30th, 2006.
As a result the company was fined £2,000 for each of the five offences and the city council was also awarded its costs of £300.
Cabinet Member for the Environment, Councillor Pat Byrne, said: “Though legal action is a last resort, the city council has little choice when faced with a contemptuous disregard for the law, fair trade and the safety of other road users.”
Issued by the press office.