The Traffic Commissioners are responsible for the regulation of bus, coach and goods vehicle operators, and registration of local bus services. Where appropriate, they can call operators or individual drivers to a Public Inquiry where concerns about service operation or driver conduct can be heard.

Nick Denton is a civil servant at the Department for Transport and currently heads the Freight Policy and Lorry Charging Division where he has most recently worked on HGV road user charging policy and the trial of longer semi-trailers.

Kevin Rooney is also a civil servant and is currently Head of Corporate Office and Head of Corporate Communications at the Department for Transport’s Vehicle and Operator Services Agency where he has a long history of developing and implementing new ways of improving compliance and road safety.

The South Eastern and Metropolitan Area Traffic Office covers Greater London; the Counties of Kent, Surrey, East Sussex and West Sussex; the Districts of Brighton and Hove and the Medway Towns.

The North Eastern Area Traffic Office covers the Metropolitan Boroughs within South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear and West Yorkshire; the Counties of Durham, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire and North Yorkshire; the Districts of Darlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, Hartlepool, Kingston upon Hull, Middlesbrough, North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, Nottingham, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees and York.

Nick Denton and Kevin Rooney will replace Philip Brown and Tom Macartney respectively, who both retired in October 2011.

The FTA has been strongly critical of VOSA’s plans to close test centres without having any viable alternatives in place.  In the past few months alone, three centres have been closed, leaving commercial vehicle operators high and dry and with no alternative but to travel some distance to fulfil their legal duty.

Peter Staines, Vice Chairman of the FTA’s Road Freight Council and member of the South East England Freight Council, said: “If I change my maintenance arrangements for my fleet I need to get the Traffic Commissioner’s nod that they are ok.  By closing test stations, VOSA is changing the arrangements for annual testing on hundreds of operators so why not get the Traffic Commissioners to check that the alternative arrangements offered by VOSA will not jeopardise road safety and operating practices?”

This year VOSA has closed three test centres, in Cornwall, Cheshire and Wales, with a fourth schedule

d for closure in West Yorkshire, early next year.  The seemingly random closures have made it more expensive and difficult for hauliers to find suitable testing facilities, adding pressure to an already fully-stretched system of testing.
James Hookham, FTA’s Managing Director of Policy and Communications, concluded:

“The bottom line is road safety, and, especially in this heavy recession, we should not be making it harder and more expensive for honest, compliant operators to meet their roadworthiness commitments.”