Looking to buy aproperty with an o licence in place

Im after a property that has an o licence in place. These are pretty hard to come across.
Im looking for the south east or east midlands area. Owner operator set up. Unit and trailer only

Perhaps you are a
little confused on this.

I wonder if what you mean is that you are looking for somewhere which has been approved as an operating centre? Even if so, you would still need to advertise your intended use, (to the satisfaction of the regulator,) of any potential site, whether it has history or not.

Be aware that land or buildings can not hold an operators licence. Only an individual or group of individuals as a partnership, or a company may do that. Be aware also that O licences are NOT transferable between individuals or undertakings. If you are, or wish to become an operator, YOU and only you can hold the licence. Even if you engage the services of a third party CPC holder, the same applies.

Sorry if this seems like I’m lecturing you, and maybe you are already aware of all this, but many people over the years have landed in the merde in just this way.

Even if a property has been a haulage depot or something for 50 years a new startup would still have to advertise in a local paper. That application can still be objected to for any reason or a new application can have clauses, hours of operation and direction of travel changed

Wheel Nut:
Even if a property has been a haulage depot or something for 50 years a new startup would still have to advertise in a local paper. That application can still be objected to for any reason or a new application can have clauses, hours of operation and direction of travel changed

Not necessarily as if there is an existing O licence in place and this is surrendered when the new operator obtains his licence for the same no of vehicles and trailers the TC can agree to a Schedule 4 transfer which means the application does not have to be advertised.

If you advertise for an o licence in our area, the application goes before the Parish Council. District Council, Police etc. You cannot change your door key without someone noticing.

Wheel Nut:
If you advertise for an o licence in our area, the application goes before the Parish Council. District Council, Police etc. You cannot change your door key without someone noticing.

You are not transferring your operators licence, you are applying for a new licence with all what that entails, maintenance, finance, previous conduct.
I think Schedule 4 is more likely to be used when Stobart lose a contract to DHL or Wincanton and only the name changes.

nyk473l:

Wheel Nut:
Even if a property has been a haulage depot or something for 50 years a new startup would still have to advertise in a local paper. That application can still be objected to for any reason or a new application can have clauses, hours of operation and direction of travel changed

Not necessarily as if there is an existing O licence in place and this is surrendered when the new operator obtains his licence for the same no of vehicles and trailers the TC can agree to a Schedule 4 transfer which means the application does not have to be advertised.

The other scenario would be if the existing operator was a limited company, he could buy the company with the land and the licence. Sure he would have to notify the TC of new directors / people in control and either keep on the existing TM or inform the TC who is to be the new one. ( I thnk I understand from another thread that remus is professinally qualified anyway :wink: )
AFAI nothing to do with parish council etc. either. :laughing:

Remus:
Im after a property that has an o licence in place. These are pretty hard to come across.
Im looking for the south east or east midlands area. Owner operator set up. Unit and trailer only

The thread has gone off course a bit. Im just after a property that has an o licence in place. So there is a good chance i could apply and get an o licence myself.
I have a passion for driving and would rent a unit for 4/5 months a year or possibly buy an older unit and subbie. Done a lot of container work out of felixstowe, would probably go down that road.
I have a seasonal business which is winter based. So driving my passion in the summer would be a bonus to my year of work.
Lotta people saying just work for someone. So on and so on. But i want to have my own truck eventually. And not drive the last donkey wagon in someones yard. Been there. Done that.
I struggled to find a transport manager to take me on without shocking fees. So i solved that problem and did my transport managers course.
Im not after making huge amounts of money. I just want the option to try it.
Thank you for posts so far

Remus:

Remus:
Im after a property that has an o licence in place. These are pretty hard to come across.
Im looking for the south east or east midlands area. Owner operator set up. Unit and trailer only

The thread has gone off course a bit. Im just after a property that has an o licence in place. So there is a good chance i could apply and get an o licence myself.
I have a passion for driving and would rent a unit for 4/5 months a year or possibly buy an older unit and subbie. Done a lot of container work out of felixstowe, would probably go down that road.
I have a seasonal business which is winter based. So driving my passion in the summer would be a bonus to my year of work.
Lotta people saying just work for someone. So on and so on. But i want to have my own truck eventually. And not drive the last donkey wagon in someones yard. Been there. Done that.
I struggled to find a transport manager to take me on without shocking fees. So i solved that problem and did my transport managers course.
Im not after making huge amounts of money. I just want the option to try it.
Thank you for posts so far

I think it’s probably the way the title of your post is worded, it does sound a bit like you wanted to buy somewhere for a full scale operation, I know the detail in your post does not say that but, hey, this is Trucknet :laughing: detail :unamused:
Have you considered just basing yourself in someone else’s yard ? There is a HGV garage just down the road from me that has multiple small operators running from there, from grab wagons to mixer trucks to straight haulage. Presumably you will need facilities for safety checks / services anyway.
If it helps, and I am not in your area, I have moved operations a couple of times but always on industrial estates and have never had a problem getting an O licence, 2 different traffic areas too, neither has anybody else that I know of when applying on the same industrial estates. I think the problems come when you are applying anywhere near houses, whether there is an existing licence there or not.
One thing I would say is that we, almost, stand our vehicles for a lot of the winter, (we do a little bit of “specialist” haulage),and I think it’s bad for them, especially with regard to brake components etc. Ours are outside, so maybe if you had at least the unit inside that would be better.
I think someone above mentioned that one of the O licence conditions is that you always have a vehicle available. I have had a licence, that should really have been surrendered when I got a knew one, that was on the records for 2 years with no vehicles. I never heard anything from the authorities and in fact when I realised it was still in place, I asked them what to do and they said just leave it run out and don’t renew it. I suspect if you told them what you were doing there would not be a problem and it would save you the costs of safety checks in the winter if the vehicle was off the licence.
Hope all that helps.