Military specialist has his licence revoked
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Judge dismisses appeal by company boss who ignored repeated requests to submit variation application
By Roger Brown
A COMPANY has lost an appeal against the revocation of its O-licence for failing to submit an application to change its address.
Upper Tribunal Judge Jacqueline Beech dismissed an appeal by Barry Flowerdew trading as Auto Village against the April decision of Eastern Area Trafic Commissioner (TC) Richard Turitt to revoke his O-licence.
In April 2010, Flowerdew, who specialises in selling cars to military personnel stationed in the UK and Spain and has a two vehicle car transporter to transport vehicles to and from the relevant docks, completed a licence checklist, and returned the fee for a ive year continuation of his licence.
Flowerdew deleted the address of the authorised operating centre in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk and replaced it with the new address of the business, two miles away, Chamber lains Barn in Brandon, Suffolk.
On 6 May 2010, VOSA’s central licensing ofice wrote to Flowerdew informing him of the need to apply for a variation to his licence due to the change in his operating centre.
An application form was enclosed, with a request for completion by 20 May 2010, along with the application fee of £250. No response was received.
On 26 July 2010, the central licensing unit wrote to Flowerdew again, asking him to submit a completed application by 9 August 2010 and advising him that he could apply for an interim licence in the meantime.
Again, no response was received.
In October 2010, Dave Harper of the CLU telephoned Flowerdew.
According to Harper, Flowerdew said he would forward the relevant forms, the required local newspaper advert, and the application fee in the next few days, but failed to do so. On 21 March 2011, Flowerdew was warned in a letter from the TC’s ofice that his licence might be revoked, but no response was received.
After the licence was inally revoked on 13 April 2011, Flowerdew emailed the TC’s ofice the following day, saying he had informed it, prior to the issuing of the fee and checklist forms, that his business was relocating.
He said he “put his hands up” to not advertising the new operating centre in the local newspaper, but had now arranged for that to be done.
Flowerdew said he had been required to spend a lot of time in Spain due to a road trafic accident suffered by his Spanish manager, but apologised for his lapse and attached a completed variation form to an email.
However, Beech said Flowerdew had failed to demonstrate any pro-activity in relation to his licence despite the TC’s ofice showing a great deal of patience towards him.
She added: “It was neither wrong nor disproportionate to revoke his licence against the background of persistent attempts by the ofice of the TC to encourage the appellant to make a variation application.
“A line had to be drawn at some stage and to draw it just short of one year from the irst notiication that a variation application was required cannot be criticised.” Auto Village has now submitted an application for a new licence.