A Traffic Commissioner (TC) is required to revoke a standard PSV O-Licence if the designated Transport Manager (TM) no longer satisfies the requirements of section 14ZA(3) of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981, and that requirement must be read as extending to the case of an operator that no longer has a designated TM.
That position was ruled by the Upper Tribunal when it dismissed an appeal by Blackburn-based Croft Travel Lancashire Ltd, trading as Croft Travel, against the revocation of the company’s O-Licence.
After the operator was notified that it had been brought to the TC’s attention that there was no TM specified on its O-Licence, it submitted application forms for Mr F Saad and Mr M Evans to be specified as designated TMs.
The company was informed that the information supplied for both Mr Saad and Mr Evans was incomplete. Both individuals emailed the Office of the TC to attempt to supply the missing information.
The TC decided to hold the applications in abeyance until after an upcoming Public Inquiry that the two men were linked to, granting the company a period of grace until a decision on their nominations could be made. Both men subsequently withdrew their offers to act as the company’s designated TMs.
The operator submitted a fresh TM application in respect of Mr B Ford. It was notified that the application was incomplete. The section on the form asking how many hours would be spent on TM duties each week had not been completed.
It was also noted that Mr Ford would become the designated TM for two operators and had also applied for an O-Licence in his own right. Confirmation was sought that Mr Ford would be able to effectively and continuously manage the transport activities of the operators for which he intended to be the designated TM.
Three days after the deadline for supplying a completed application, the company’s director Rhianna Hughes, jointly with Mr Ford, responded and attached a completed TM application form.
Having explained that she had been away and had only just accessed her emails, Ms Hughes went on to state that Mr Ford would devote 20 hours per week to his TM duties for the company, “only visiting his own operating centre a couple of times a week,” as he intended to proceed with his own application for an O-Licence.
The Upper Tribunal found that the grounds of appeal did not clearly identify any mistake made by the TC. It could not be disputed that, at the expiry of the period of grace, the company had failed to submit a completed application form for authorisation of a designated TM.
The form submitted, which was signed by Mr Ford and Ms Hughes, did not answer the standard question about the number of hours each week that the prospective TM would devote to managing the company’s transport operations.
Since all other sections of the form were completed, and the application followed an earlier submission that was also incomplete, that omission could not be considered an oversight.
The company had said that the question was “missed” but it did not explain why. Given Mr Ford’s other commitments, it was more likely than not that the omission was intentional.
Ms Hughes argued that upon submitting the TM application in respect of Mr Ford, she assumed no further period of grace was required. However, she had knowingly submitted an incomplete form. Ms Hughes could not reasonably have believed that a complete application had been submitted.
