Carmel Coaches Ltd, Re

A traffic commissioner may find an operator or designated transport manager lacks good repute for reasons other than relevant criminal convictions. The assessment requires regard to all relevant evidence, including previous regulatory conduct.

A company cannot establish professional competence through a designated transport manager who holds the required qualification but lacks good repute. An appellate tribunal should be slow to disturb a commissioner’s assessment of the impression made by oral evidence, unless an obvious error is shown.

Carmel Coaches Ltd applied for a standard international operator’s licence for one vehicle under the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981. Its sole director, Mr Hazell, was proposed as designated transport manager.

The Senior Traffic Commissioner refused the application following a public inquiry. The refusal rested principally on Mr Hazell’s failure genuinely to acknowledge previous serious regulatory failings, which led the Commissioner to find that he lacked good repute.

The company appealed. It contended that good repute could only be lost through criminal convictions, that the inquiry had been unfair, that favourable references had been overlooked, and that Mr Hazell’s renewed qualification established professional competence.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Traffic Commissioner’s refusal of the application stood.

2. Under the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981, the Commissioner had to be satisfied both that the company was of good repute and professionally competent, and that its designated transport manager was of good repute and professionally competent. The absence of relevant criminal convictions did not compel a finding of good repute. Paragraph 1(9) of Schedule 3 expressly preserved the power to find that an individual lacked good repute for other reasons.

3. The Commissioner was entitled to assess good repute by reference to all relevant evidence, including the manager’s earlier regulatory conduct and his response to it. The finding that Mr Hazell had not genuinely acknowledged the company’s past compliance failures was open to the Commissioner.

4. The Upper Tribunal rejected the allegation of procedural unfairness. The Office of the Traffic Commissioner could not advise an applicant on how to establish good repute without compromising its regulatory independence. The references supplied at the inquiry had been considered. They addressed general character rather than the regulatory-compliance concerns which determined the application.

5. Applying the appellate restraint explained in Biogen Inc. v. Medeva Ltd [1997] RPC 1, the Tribunal would not interfere with the Commissioner’s assessment of the impression made by Mr Hazell’s oral evidence absent an obvious error. No such error was shown.

6. Mr Hazell’s qualification meant that he was professionally competent as an individual. Any suggestion to the contrary in the Commissioner’s compressed reasons was either a reference to the company’s inability to rely on a manager lacking good repute, or an immaterial error. The failure to establish the manager’s good repute independently required refusal of the licence.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): dismissed the appeal and upheld the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s decision of 19 February 2024 refusing the operator’s-licence application.
• Senior Traffic Commissioner (Western Traffic Area): refused the application following a public inquiry.