Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995
| Year | 1995 |
Goods Vehicles (Licensing ofOperators) Act 1995
1995 CHAPTER 23
An Act to consolidate Part V of the Transport Act 1968 and related provisions concerning the licensing of operators of certain goods vehicles.
[19th July 1995]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Functions of traffic commissioners
1 Functions of traffic commissioners.
(1) The traffic commissioner for any traffic area constituted for the purposes of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 shall exercise the functions conferred on him by this Act.
(2) In the exercise of his functions under this Act a traffic commissioner shall act under the general directions of the Secretary of State.
Operators' licences
2 Obligation to hold operator's licence.
(1) Subject to subsection (2) and section 4, no person shall use a goods vehicle on a road for the carriage of goods—
(a) for hire or reward, or
(b) for or in connection with any trade or business carried on by him,
except under a licence issued under this Act; and in this Act such a licence is referred to as an ‘operator's licence’.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to—
(a) the use of a small goods vehicle within the meaning given in Schedule 1;
(b) the use of a goods vehicle for international carriage by a haulier established in a member State other than the United Kingdom and not established in the United Kingdom;
(c) the use of a goods vehicle for international carriage by a haulier established in Northern Ireland and not established in Great Britain; or
(d) the use of a vehicle of any class specified in regulations.
(3) In subsection (2)(b) and (c) ‘established’, ‘haulier’ and ‘international carriage’ have the same meaning as in Community Council Regulation (EEC) No.881/92 dated 26 March 1992 concerning access to the market in the carriage of goods by road within the Community to or from the territory of a member State or passing across the territory of one or more member States.
(4) It is hereby declared that, for the purposes of this Act, the performance by a local or public authority of their functions constitutes the carrying on of a business.
(5) A person who uses a vehicle in contravention of this section is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
3 ‘Standard’ and ‘restricted’ licences.
(1) An operator's licence may be either a standard licence or a restricted licence.
(2) A standard licence is an operator's licence under which a goods vehicle may be used on a road for the carriage of goods—
(a) for hire or reward, or
(b) for or in connection with any trade or business carried on by the holder of the licence.
(3) A restricted licence is an operator's licence under which a goods vehicle may be used on a road for the carriage of goods for or in connection with any trade or business carried on by the holder of the licence, other than that of carrying goods for hire or reward.
(4) Notwithstanding subsections (2) and (3), a company may use a goods vehicle on a road for the carriage of goods for hire or reward under a restricted licence instead of a standard licence if (but only if) the goods concerned are the property of a company which is—
(a) a subsidiary of the first company,
(b) a holding company for the first company, or
(c) a subsidiary of a company which is a holding company both for that subsidiary and for the first company.
(5) A standard licence may authorise a goods vehicle to be used for the carriage of goods—
(a) on both national and international transport operations; or
(b) on national transport operations only.
(6) Except as provided in subsection (4) and subject to section 4, a person who uses a goods vehicle under a restricted licence for carrying goods for hire or reward is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 500.
(7) A person who uses a goods vehicle for carrying goods for hire or reward on international transport operations under a standard licence which covers the carriage of goods on national transport operations only is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 500.
4 Temporary exemptions.
(1) A traffic commissioner may, for the purpose of—
(a) enabling an emergency to be dealt with, or
(b) enabling some other special need to be met,
by notice in writing grant to any person falling within subsection (2) a temporary exemption from any requirement to hold a standard licence which would otherwise be imposed on him by sections 2 and 3 in respect of any vehicle specified in the notice or any vehicle of a class so specified.
(2) A person falls within this subsection if he is engaged exclusively in national transport operations which have only a minor impact on the transport market because of the nature of the goods carried or the short distances over which goods are carried.
(3) A temporary exemption granted under subsection (1) permits the person to whom it is granted to use the specified vehicle or (as the case may be) any vehicle of the specified class for the carriage of goods for hire or reward for the purposes of transport operations of his such as are referred to in subsection (2) (and, accordingly, sections 2(1) and 3(6) shall not to that extent apply to that person's use of goods vehicles).
(4) A temporary exemption has effect until consultations with the European Commission for the purposes of Article 2(2) of the 1974 Council Directive are completed.
Vehicles authorised to be used under a licence
5 Vehicles authorised to be used under operator's licence.
(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, the vehicles authorised to be used under an operator's licence are—
(a) any motor vehicle in the lawful possession of the licence-holder (whether that motor vehicle is specified in the licence or not); and
(b) any trailer in the lawful possession of the licence-holder.
(2) An operator's licence may provide—
(a) that no motor vehicle, or no trailer, whose relevant weight exceeds a weight specified in the licence is authorised to be used under it;
(b) that no trailers are authorised to be used under the licence; or
(c) that no motor vehicle that is not specified in the licence is authorised to be used under it.
(3) In subsection (2) ‘relevant weight’, in relation to a motor vehicle or trailer of any prescribed class, means a weight of the description specified in relation to motor vehicles or trailers of that class by regulations.
(4) An operator's licence shall not authorise the use of any vehicle unless the place which is for the time being its operating centre—
(a) is in the area of the traffic commissioner by whom the licence was issued; or
(b) is outside that area but has not been the operating centre of that vehicle for a period of more than three months.
(5) For the purposes of subsection (4)(b), two or more successive periods which are not separated from each other by an interval of at least three months shall be treated as a single period having a duration equal to the total duration of those periods.
(6) A motor vehicle which is not specified in an operator's licence is not authorised to be used under that licence by virtue of subsection (1) after the period of one month beginning with—
(a) the day on which the vehicle was first in the lawful possession of the licence-holder, or
(b) (if later) the day on which the licence came into force,
unless, during that period, the licence-holder has given to the traffic commissioner by whom the licence was issued a notice in such form and containing such information about the vehicle as the commissioner may require, and has paid to him a prescribed fee.
(7) Where notice of a vehicle has been duly given and the...
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