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Operator wins appeal after address mix-up
AN OPERATOR HAS won an appeal against the automatic termination of her 0-licence after the Appeal Tribunal accepted there had been a breakdown in communication between two government offices.
The Tribunal was told that the Leeds administrative centre had been notified of a change of correspondence address in January for Tavistock-based Juliet Hutchison.
She was aware of the need to renew her restricted 0-licence for two vehicles and one trailer by 30 April 2009. When she had not received any documentation by 6 April, she sent a fax to the Traffic Area Office (TAO) in Bristol. That letter was headed with the new correspondence address. Not having received the necessary forms, she paid the renewal fee by credit card on 1 May. The TAO continued to write to the wrong address and those letters were returned, marked "gone away". Allowing the appeal, the Tribunal said it had considerable sympathy with the Traffic Commissioner because, on the information available to her, it was an appropriate case for revocation. However, this was not a typical case of an operator deliberately avoiding contact with the TAO. By 1 May, VOSA knew the correct address and it was most unlikely that Hutchison would notify a change of address to VOSA but fail to notify Leeds or the TAO. The probability was a failure in communication between Leeds and Bristol with the result the correspondence address was never updated in the Bristol TAO. In those circumstances, the Tribunal was satisfied that the revocation could not stand.