The warning comes from traffic commissioner Richard Turfitt, after a Leighton Buzzard-based haulier, NCH Logistics, failed to attend a public inquiry in Cambridge last month.
NCH Logistics requested a public inquiry after the Office of the Traffic Commissioner proposed to revoke its licence following a failure to provide evidence of financial standing.
The regulator said: “The resources of this office are provided through operator licence fees, which responsible operators are entitled to expect will be used to best effect.
“At no point did the operator or its directors seek to withdraw the request for a public inquiry. In pursuing that request they incurred valuable tribunal time which might equally have been deployed to the hearing of other cases, including those seeking to enter the industry.”