Cabbies to get £4,700 in fines paid back
http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/Ca ... 5815574.jp
CALDERDALE cabbies are celebrating after the council said it would pay back £4,700 in fines.
Taxi drivers across the district have been protesting about the controversial Offence Notification Proced-ures since it was started in 2008.
Under the scheme, licensing officers could fine drivers £50 on the spot for offences ranging from not displaying insurance details to not having correct stickers in their vehicles.
Now Calderdale Council has backed down in the face of the opposition and agreed to cancel the procedures and pay the money back.
Sultan Mahmood, secretary of the Calderdale Private Hire Association, said: "We are delighted.
"This scheme was wrong from the start and treated drivers incredibly unfairly.
"They took £4,350 in fines last year and £350 this year, that means around 100 drivers will be getting the money back.
"We are all over the moon."
The decision to cancel the offence notification procedures was made at a licensing committee meeting.
Mohammed Ilyas (Lib Dem, Park), said: "This was a big thing to have got wrong. I hope it eill not be repeated.
"But it is good the council has held its hands up and realised its mistake."
The council say enforcement action against taxi drivers will now revert to the old system of written cautions and prosecutions being take through magistrates courts.
A spokesman said: "Calderdale Council's Licensing and Regulatory Committee has agreed to discontinue its Offence Notification Procedures for Minor Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Offences.
"The decision follows council's opinion on the operation of the scheme, which was subject to objection from Calderdale Private Hire Association.
"The scheme had enabled enforcement officers to spend less time on preparation of prosecution files and more time enforcing legislation and conditions."
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