Oldham-based Ozayr Ahmed Asghar, trading as Ozzy’s Mini Buses, has lost his appeal against the refusal of his bid for a fresh licence for the second time following the revocation of a previous licence in April 2014 and his disqualification from holding a PSV O-Licence for six months.
Mr Asghar had sought a new two-vehicle restricted licence and the application was refused by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Simon Evans without Mr Ashgar being called to a Public Inquiry (PI).
The TC refused his first application for a similar licence in 2017 on the grounds that his main occupation was more likely than not to be the operation of PSVs.
The financial return on the letting of units had been much less in recent years than could be earned from the school contracts and other private hire work to be undertaken.
A school contract, especially one of those for the carriage of those with special needs, could earn an operator £500 per week. If £500 per week per vehicle was earned on the school contract work, based on a 38-week period he could earn £38,000 per year plus any other work carried out [routeone/Court Report/27 September 2017].
The TC refused the second application on the grounds that Mr Ashgar had again failed to meet the main occupation rule.
Dismissing the appeal, the Upper Tribunal said that the TC decided not to offer Mr Asghar a PI as it must have been thought that Mr Asghar’s application was either frivolous or unreasonable or that his conduct in relation to the application had either been frivolous or unreasonable.
Mr Asghar has not, in appealing to the Upper Tribunal, sought to contend that the decision to refuse to hold a PI was wrong. There is no indication that he has ever asked for one.
Mr Asghar’s written grounds of appeal amounted to an assertion that while he had previously been unable to demonstrate compliance with the main occupation test because of a difficulty in obtaining documentation from his employer, he was able to do so now.
With his grounds he submitted a contract of employment made between himself and a firm called Priory Financial Solutions, which indicated he was contracted to work 30 hours per week as an administrative assistant for that organisation and had been so contracted since 9 April 2018.
All Mr Ashgar had really done was sought to demonstrate to the Tribunals, by way of evidence not produced to the Office of the Traffic Commissioner, that he did satisfy that test. He had not actually sought to identify any error in the decision of the TC. He had in fact, simply invited the Tribunal to take a different view because of the existence of the new evidence.
Mr Asghar asserted that the circumstance of his employment did exist at the time of the TC’s decision.
It was simply that he now had documentary evidence of it to corroborate what was prior to that only his own assertion.
Mr Asghar was obliged to demonstrate, in the course of his application, that he met the requirements of the main occupation test. That required much more from him than merely demonstrating that he had some employment.
He had provided no detail as to the nature of the work he intended to carry out in his proposed business or any proper and reasoned analysis as to what hours he might have to work in order to secure and keep any business he might obtain. He had not provided any information as to what sort of profit he anticipated the proposed business might generate.
