Recent Upper Tribunal Decisions

The Upper Tribunal (UT) is the appeal court from Traffic Commissioner decisions at Public Inquiries and the following are summaries of recent decisions from the UT, which must be taken into account by the Traffic Commissioner.

Transport system lets down Transport Business Director

K & K HGV Transport Ltd Upper Tribunal Appeal No. UA-2024-000881-T

14 November 2024

An appeal was heard in the absence of the Director of the company which had its O Licence revoked. Telephone calls that the Director was stuck in traffic on his way to the court room made no difference, even though he ultimately did attend but was 30 minutes late.

The decision went against the company where his explanation for failing to respond to OTC letters which threatened an automatic revocation of the O licence was to do with a relative having been sectioned under the Mental Health Act did not hold sway with the judges either.

A view was taken that while the situation here could be understood,  it was not part of the licencing system, that Licences should not be revoked if a relative needed to be able to look after someone who has been sectioned. Understandably, an appeal point like that was not something the judges could consider as a reason to interfere with the regulation of O licences as set out in the legislation.

Transport Manager didn’t manage to get round to it

GBM Haulage Limited Upper Tribunal Appeal No. UA-2024-000321-T

8^th November 2024

An operator’s Directors, who appeared at the appeal court to challenge a DTC decision to revoke after a series of warning letters from the OTC, were not successful.

Letters from the Traffic Commissioner requiring details of a change of Director (in this case the substitution of one sole director for another) had not been dealt with. The excuse given at the appeal that the Directors thought that the Transport Manager had seen to the matter but had not, was not acceptable to the judges.

Directors can’t hide behind the TM in a situation like this and blame them for actions to do with the management of the licence. While it is perfectly appropriate for instructions to be given to a TM to deal with correspondence from the OTC, to claim that “we thought they had done it but they hadn’t” is going nowhere, as did the appeal point in this case.

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