In a landmark case, the lawfulness of the small vehicle conditions – those with eight or fewer passenger seats – imposed on PSV O-licences is to be decided by Deputy Traffic Commissioner (DTC) Anthony Seculer in a case brought against Burnley-based Althams Travel Service.
The company with a 20-vehicle international licence, was called before the DTC because of concerns that its use of small vehicles to carry passengers to airports and cruise ships did not fall within the conditions.
For the company, James Backhouse argued that it was a commercial business operating vehicles at separate fares that were arranged by the company. That meant that an O-Licence was required. Each vehicle often collected people from more than one booking. To use the service, people had to have booked a holiday through the company.
The DTC said that wider advertisement to the public was not part of the arrangement. Essentially there were private bookings coming together to share, rather than being advertised to the public.
Mr Backhouse said he did not accept members of the public were not people who booked holidays with the company. He argued that it did not matter whether the journeys were advertised to the public or not, because as the company arranges the journeys, brought the passengers together and charged separate fares, an O-Licence was required. It was the only way the journeys could be operated.
The DTC said that the remedy might be to operate larger vehicles.
After the DTC had said that in the 2014 case of James Fleming, a strikingly similar case, the Upper Tribunal accepted the legal position as expressed by the TC.
Mr Backhouse argued that Tribunal decisions did not bind TCs, and the point that the conditions could be unlawful was not argued before the Tribunal.
Mr Backhouse pointed out that as the licence was granted prior to 2010, there were no conditions, so the company could not be in breach of them.
After the DTC referred to a letter sent to all operators in 2010 requiring them to meet the terms of the conditions, Mr Backhouse said that he did not accept that that letter was binding on operators.
MD Sandra McAllister said that Althans had never intended to operate outside the law.
The DTC said he had seen nothing to suggest otherwise. He did not see any evidence of a breach of faith by the company in the way the small vehicles were operated. He is to announce his decision in writing at a later date.
