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Neutral Citation Number:	2015 UKUT 668 AAC
Reported Number:
File Number:	T 40 2015
Appellant:	Tacsi Gwynedd Limited
Respondent:
Judge/Commissioner:	Judge E. Mitchell
Date Of Decision:	26/11/2015
Date Added:	04/12/2015
Main Category:	Transport - Traffic Commissioner
Main Subcategory:	Traffic Commissioner cases
Secondary Category:
Secondary Subcategory:
Notes:	Reported as [2016] AACR 30. Traffic Commissioner – licence – revocation – whether transport manager can be volunteer – starting point of period of grace – use of Welsh language at public inquiry The appellant operator held both a restricted and a standard licence under the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981. Following a report by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), a Deputy Traffic Commissioner for the Welsh Traffic Area held a public inquiry into the appellant operator and decided that the licences should be revoked as the negative findings outweighed the positive ones: Bryan Haulage (No 2) 2002/217 followed. The appellant operator appealed against that decision to the Upper Tribunal (UT) and among the issues before it were whether a volunteer could properly be appointed a transport manager and the period of grace before revoking a standard licence. Held, allowing the appeal, that: 1. a volunteer acting for no remuneration and without any contract, employment or otherwise, with the transport operator lacked the necessary link to be a transport manager in accordance with Article 4(1) and (2) of Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 and was fundamentally at odds with the general regulatory purpose to ensure competent and effective management of transport activities (paragraph 56); 2. the Deputy Traffic Commissioner wrongly decided that he had no power to grant a period of grace for the appellant operator to fix the regulatory deficit. When Article 13.1 of the 2009 Regulation referred to requirements no longer being satisfied, it referred to the instant determination of non-compliance that had just been made, ie that a Traffic Commissioner had made a determination differing from that made when a licence was granted. The Commissioner’s alternative interpretation, that as the appellant operator never had a properly designated transport manager it never had professional competence, was counter to the purpose of the 2009 Regulation and would prevent, in certain cases, the proportionate regulatory response (paragraphs 68 to 73); 3. where an operator was granted an additional licence for a particular traffic area, that must terminate an existing licence for the area. It was a statutory termination under section 15(2) of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 even given the declaration in section 12(3) that an operator could not hold more than one licence for a single traffic area (paragraph 92); 4. section 18(2) of the 1981 Act provides for a Traffic Commissioner, upon granting a licence, also to issue operator’s discs. The disc was not the licence, only evidence of the licence. The Public Service Vehicles (Operators’ Licences) Regulations 1995 make further provision about discs and licences. If a licence expires, both the licence and related operator’s discs must be returned to a Commissioner. Here, the licence must mean the piece of paper recording the grant of a licence (paragraph 94); 5. (obiter) given DVSA’s and the Traffic Commissioners’ Welsh language commitments, arrangements should have been made for Welsh documentation to be translated before the inquiry date, included in the inquiry papers and sent to the parties. It contradicted the letter and spirit of those commitments if operators who corresponded with DVSA in Welsh found themselves prejudiced before a public inquiry by that correspondence being ignored or by having unexpectedly to deal with a translation issue on the spot (paragraph 118).
Decision(s) to Download:	[2016] AACR 30ws.docm