The tribunal upheld the decision, stating ample time was given to supply necessary information
The refusal of Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Jones to increase the authorisation on the restricted licence held by Swansea-based Raymond Heard, trading as Kyle’s Executive Travel, without holding a Public Inquiry (PI), has been upheld by the Upper Tribunal on appeal.
The Tribunal said that in February 2016, the Office of the Traffic Commissioners (OTC) wrote to Mr Heard, of Cimla, Swansea, to inform him that the information supplied support of his application was incomplete.
The letter instructed Mr Heard to supply certain information including details of his main or occupation, which he had stated was a taxi business, and his annual tax returns, self-assessments or audited accounts to determine his earnings from his occupation.
In March 2016 the OTC again wrote to Mr Heard. The letter stated that had not supplied the material requested by the February deadline, and included a warning that it was a final attempt to resolve the issues by correspondence and that he must now respond in full by no later than 28 March.
On 30 March the OTC received some information from Mr Heard including a handwritten note which simply stated “self: 24 hour taxi business, 16 hour minibuses”; and a document prepared by an accountant dated December 2015 headed “Kyles Executive Travel – income and expenditure account for the year ended 31 March 2015”.
The TC rejected Mr Heard’s application on the grounds that Mr Heard had failed to comply with repeated requests to supply the information necessary determine his application.
He declined a PI before deciding the application because he considered it frivolous. The application itself was refused because the TC was not satisfied that Mr Heard’s main occupation was working the taxi business as he had claimed.
Dismissing the appeal, the Tribunal said that the TC’s findings were not plainly wrong, nor were his reasons for rejecting Mr Heard’s application. The OTC provided him with a checklist of outstanding material. Mr Heard had ample opportunity to supply the necessary supporting material.
They did not accept Mr Heard’s argument that the TC’s decision was flawed because, before it was taken, neither the OTC nor the TC went through his application point-by-point, or identified information gaps and told him how he should go about filling them. There was only so much the OTC could reasonably be expected to do to assist applicants.
