A Cornish farmer recently won his case against VOSA (Vehicle and Operator Services Agency) which tried to prosecute him for transporting a heavy load illegally on a public road. Among other things, Mr Hobbs was accused of not holding a goods licence for the vehicle he used to transport a dumper truck which he was collecting from his neighbour to whom he had lent it.
Mr Hobbs, in partnership with his parents, farmed a 192 acre beef and sheep farm. In autumn 2007, the partnership loaned a dumper truck to a neighbouring farmer, Mr Robinson, to muck out his poultry sheds. It remained on his farm until September 2008 when Mr Hobbs requested its return. Because Mr Robinson had broken his ankle and was unable to drive, Mr Hobbs collected it on the back of a trailer towed by a tractor. He was stopped on the return journey.
Mr Hobbs was prosecuted under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995 (the ‘1995 Act’). However, a section of the Act provided some exceptions to the general provisions thus giving Mr Hobbs a viable defence. One of these exceptions applies where the object being hauled is a farming implement. Therefore, Mr Hobbs’s defence argued that the dumper truck was a farm implement.
In order to prove that the dumper truck was not a farming implement, VOSA used existing case law to argue that as it had not been constructed or permanently fitted out for agricultural operations, it remained a dumper truck (i.e. for use in the construction industry) and could not be deemed to be a farming implement.
The Court took a different view. They referred to a metaphorical spade, fork or bucket being transported on a lorry for sale in a hardware shop. At that stage those tools could be bought by anyone and will not be deemed to be farming implements. However if the same spade, fork and bucket are in the back of a farmer’s trailer, being transported from one part of the farm for use at another, they are clearly farming implements, even though they have not been specifically altered for agricultural use.
At the original hearing the dumper truck was described as being used by Mr Hobbs to resurface the field tracks, excavate drainage ditches and take away spoil, as well as to improve banks on his parents’ farm. VOSA suggested that those operations are not strictly agricultural, being no different say, to using the dumper truck to resurface a public road. Accordingly, it was decided that the dumper truck was not being used for agricultural purposes and was not a farming implement.
However the Court concluded that field tracks are needed to access fields for the purposes of farming and therefore work on them constitutes an agricultural operation as are drainage ditch excavation and bank construction. The dumper truck was therefore a farming implement within the exception to the 1995 Act and the Magistrates had been right to dismiss the case against Mr Hobbs.
However, the Court did warn that their decision hinged on the fact that the dumper truck was being used regularly for farming operations by both Mr Hobbs and his neighbour. By contrast, if a piece of equipment was used briefly for an agricultural operation, it could not necessarily be described as a farming implement – particularly if its normal use is for some non-farming purpose.
For more information or guidance about the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995, or any other matter relating to the transportation of equipment or animals, please contact
Paul Rice in our Farming and Rural Business Team.
