Safir Shafi (t/a Alltravel Minibuses), Re

An appellate tribunal will not interfere with a Traffic Commissioner’s regulatory response unless it is plainly wrong. A revocation and associated disqualifications may be proportionate where an operator has persistently failed to secure compliance despite earlier regulatory intervention, particularly where the failures create a serious risk to passengers and other road users.

Personal illness, bereavement and financial hardship cannot, without more, dilute the regulatory requirements governing public passenger vehicles. A Commissioner need not accept proposed future improvements where the operator’s history gives no adequate basis for confidence that a compliant operation will be maintained.

The appellant held a standard international PSV operator’s licence and was its designated transport manager. Following a vehicle wheel-loss incident and a DVSA investigation, the Traffic Commissioner found repeated maintenance, tachograph, drivers’ hours and notification failures.

On 8 June 2023, the Commissioner revoked the licence, disqualified the appellant from holding or obtaining an operator’s licence for two years, and disqualified him from acting as a transport manager for two years. The appellant appealed, relying on personal difficulties, proposed compliance improvements and the effect on household income.

The central issue was whether the Commissioner had made a material error of fact or law, or imposed a disproportionate regulatory response.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Upper Tribunal held that the Traffic Commissioner’s decision involved no error of fact or law and that the sanctions were proportionate.

2. The appellant did not seriously dispute the adverse factual findings. Applying the plainly-wrong appellate standard in Bradley Fold Travel Ltd & Peter Wright v Secretary of State for Transport [2010] EWCA Civ 695, the Tribunal could not find fault with the Commissioner’s regulatory response.

3. The findings disclosed a longstanding inability to operate a compliant business despite previous interventions, including revocation of an earlier licence. The failures culminated in the loss of two wheels while a vehicle was carrying passengers, creating an obvious and grave risk to passengers and other road users.

4. The Commissioner had considered the appellant’s actual and proposed improvements, including roller brake testing, maintenance arrangements and possible tachograph systems. The Commissioner was entitled to conclude that these measures did not establish that the appellant could be trusted to operate compliantly.

5. Personal illness, bereavement and financial consequences could not themselves justify relaxing the regulatory requirements applicable to public passenger vehicles. Even if those circumstances had not been considered, that omission was not material on the facts.

6. The revocation under Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981, and the two-year operator and transport-manager disqualifications, therefore stood.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): dismissed the appeal and upheld the Traffic Commissioner’s revocation and two-year disqualification orders: [2024] UKUT 298 (AAC).
• Traffic Commissioner for the East of England Traffic Area: on 8 June 2023 revoked the appellant’s PSV operator’s licence and imposed two-year disqualifications from holding an operator’s licence and acting as a transport manager.