REASONS FOR DECISION
1.This appeal to the Upper Tribunal has been brought by Walsall Builders and Timber Merchants Limited (“the Operator”) and its sole director Kamran Aftab (“Mr Aftab”). The decisions under challenge made by the Traffic Commissioner on 17 March 2022 were these:“1.The restricted goods operator licence OD2014122 held by Walsall Builders and Timber Merchants Ltd is revoked with effect from 0001 hours on 1 April 2022, pursuant to section 26(1)(a), (c)(iii), (e), (f) and (h) of the Goods Vehicles (Licencing of Operators) Act 1995 (“the 1995 Act”). 2.Walsall Builders and Timber Merchants Limited and its director Kamran Aftab are hereby disqualified under section 28 of the 1995 Act from holding or obtaining an Operator’s Licence and (in Mr Aftab’s case) from being the director of any company holding or obtaining such a licence. The disqualification is for a period of two years and is effective from 1 April 2022 until 1 April 2024”.2.The factual background to the appeal is set out in the decision of the Traffic Commissioner (“TC”) of 17 March 2022 and related documentation. Put briefly, the operator had obtained its restricted licence on 31 August 2018 when authorisation was given to use three vehicles. On 22 May 2021 one of its vehicles was stopped by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (“DVSA”) and it was discovered that the tachograph unit had never been downloaded despite that vehicle having been specified on the licence since July 2019. That discovery triggered a DVSA investigation. The findings of the DVSA were summarised by the TC as follows:“i) the authorised operating centre was a builders’ yard. On both the dates DVSA examiners visited (5 October and 8 December 2021), the operator’s vehicles were parked on the public highway outside the yard, on double yellow lines in a residential street and on the pedestrian pavement. The builder’s yard was clearly not large enough to allow three HGVs to park there during the day when customers required access and materials needed to be moved around.ii) preventative maintenance inspections had occasionally missed the stated six week intervals. The operator claimed that the vehicles in question had been off the road, but there was no evidence of this as no VOR system was in use. No brake tests of any kind were being carried out during the safety inspections. The safety inspections were being carried out by a mobile mechanic, not the operator’s stated maintenance provider. The inspections were not being carried out under cover.iii) the operator’s vehicles had a 67% initial MOT failure rate, far above the national average.iv) during the visit by DVSA vehicle examiner Paul Matthews on 8 December 2021, one of the operator’s vehicles had been given an immediate prohibition for a tyre with tread depth below the legal limit and a delayed prohibition for an ABS fault. The previous driver defect report had recorded no defects.v) preventative maintenance inspection sheets frequently reported defects which should have been identified by the drivers’ defect reports. These had all reported no defects, however.vi) vehicle tachograph units had not been locked in to the operator until 2 October 2021, four days before the arranged meeting with traffic examiner Kathrine Cox on 6 October (in the event she visited the operating centre on 5 October). The operator had possessed a digital tachograph vehicle since August 2018. No downloads from the vehicle units had ever been carried out.vii) the first download of driver tachograph cards which the operator had evidence of was carried out on 27 July 2021, around four weeks after TE Cox first wrote to the operator to ask for drivers’ hours records. The infringement report generated showed that one driver was being regularly scheduled to work Mondays to Thursdays and on Saturdays, which prevented him from taking the required weekly rests. The operator had never picked this up. A number of 4.5 hours offences were also identified”.3.The TC, unsurprisingly, decided to call the operator and Mr Aftab to a Public Inquiry (“PI”). Accordingly, on 14 February 2022 the Office of the Traffic Commissioner (“OTC”) wrote to inform the operator and Mr Aftab that the PI would be held on 17 March 2022. We shall not go through the content of that call-up letter in detail but it made clear that the content of a report prepared by DVSA vehicle examiner Paul Matthews would be considered at the PI; that the TC would expect the operator and Mr Aftab to deal with various of the failings identified in that report; that the TC expected to be provided with documentary evidence regarding the operator’s financial standing and regarding aspects of its vehicle maintenance and safety arrangements; that such evidence was required to be provided to the TC at least seven days prior to the date of commencement of the PI; and that revocation of the licence and disqualification of the operator and of Mr Aftab was an available option. The TC also required an attendance form to be completed and returned by email. The letter included the following warning “the Traffic Commissioner is unlikely to allow a postponement unless the circumstances are exceptional.