Lincoln City Council's licensing committee has rejected Office of Fair Trading advice to de-limit the number of taxis operating in the city.

Police in Lincoln say that more taxis on the street would cut violent crime and improve public safety.  The claim came after city councillors voted not to remove the limit on the number of taxis operating, ignoring Government and Office of Fair Trading advice to do so.  Last year's OFT report on the UK taxi and private hire trades said that removing numerical controls would provide a better service at busy times like Friday and Saturday nights.

The Lincolnshire Echo quoted Sergeant Paul Pettitt, of Lincolnshire Police's Safe in the City team as saying that long queues for taxis were a source of tension at times.  He said: "There aren't enough cars to clear the city centre so drunk and rowdy people have to queue up and tempers get frayed. More hackneys would clear the area much quicker - people can just hail one and jump in.  Getting a private hire care takes longer. If there were more hackney cabs it would make our lives a lot easier."

Taxi numbers in Lincoln are limited to 30, while 250 private hire vehicles also operate.

But the council claims that there is not enough customer demand to sustain more taxis in the city.  The Echo quoted Councillor Richard Coupland, who said: "There is no waiting list for people who want to run taxis in the city so the demand can't be that high.  In 1996 the Government deregulated public transport buses and it was a disaster.  Any bus company could come in and operate on a route - we ended up with a situation where there were too many buses chasing too few passengers".

James Hart, a representative of taxi owners in Lincoln, said: "If the council had gone ahead with this we might get drivers coming in from Nottingham and Leicester who don't know their way around the place - is that what people want?  We also have to provide wheelchair access and that might be under threat if we deregulate.  Waiting times could be reduced but not eliminated - more hackney cabs would just mean that the guys doing the job well now would be forced out and we would be left with people who don't even know the place."

Comment
With only 30 taxis serving a population 84,000, Lincoln is clearly home to one of the tightest taxi plate cartels in the country, with licenses issued for next-to-nothing by Lincoln City Council presumably changing hands for tens of thousands of pounds.

In Scotland, Falkirk and Dundee have populations less than twice that of Lincoln, but each license around 500 taxis each.  Closer to Lincoln, Great Yarmouth has a similar population but Department for Transport figures reveal 154 taxis operating.  Of course, the huge gap in the 'for hire' market in Lincoln is served by 250 private hire cars, while in Great Yarmouth PH numbers are commensurately lower at only 60.

Councillor Coupland's comment about there being no waiting list for people wanting to run taxis is baffling to say the least - it seems highly unlikely that there are no more people who would run a taxi in Lincoln given the chance - but perhaps he means that the council don't maintain a waiting list rather than there being no one who actually wants a license, in which case his comments are disingenuous to say the least.  In any case, if no one wants a new taxi license then why does the council feel the need to restrict numbers?

As usual, the other misleading and scaremongering arguments against de-restricting numbers have nothing to do with the issue.

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