Taxi Driver Online

Slightly odd case, and a slightly odd narrative - this is about Bolton Council, but Bury Council suddenly makes an appearance, but it's not entirely clear why

And most of the article seems to assume he has one operator licence, but suddenly he has two revoked (maybe that's something to do with the Bury thing, but Bolton couldn't revoke that licence as well )

Anyway, it was presumably a fleet car driver who had done something naughty, but the operator wouldn't identify the driver?


Bolton taxi operator failed to declare criminal conviction

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/26 ... onviction/

A taxi operator responsible for “a large number of vehicles” has been stripped of his licence after failing to declare a criminal conviction.

A behind closed doors meeting of Bolton Council’s licensing committee heard that earlier this year the unnamed operator had failed to identify a driver when required by police officers.

The operator attended the meeting at Bolton Town Hall without a legal representative on Tuesday October 6, according to recently published minutes.

Council documents said: “The private hire operator outlined his position, he requested for further evidence to be presented, the licencing officer objected to this being considered at this late stage as they were unable to consider the additional evidence or to make further enquiries.

“The chair explained this should have been sent ahead of the meeting, as requested in the invite letter, so that this could be considered by committee in good time.

“It was explained to the driver that he could however provide a summary of the evidence within his submissions.

“A letter from Bury Council was read out which outlined a warning letter was sent to the private hire operator.

“Whereupon a motion was made to revoke both private hire operator licences.”

The operator and the committee agreed that each would have 15 minutes to present their cases.

The meeting heard how the operator had been convicted of failing to identify a driver when required to by police on March 25 this year.

The operator had been required to declare his conviction as one of the conditions of his licence.

He was also unable to give any explanation for why he had failed to provide the driver details and why he had delayed telling the council’s licensing department about his conviction.

The documents said: “The licence holder was responsible for large number of vehicles under the operator licence, and it was important that he was complying with the law when in this position of responsibility.

“Therefore, there is reasonable cause to revoke the private hire operator licences.”

Cllr Toby Hewitt moved that the operator be stripped of his licence, which was seconded by Cllr Anne Galloway and carried by a majority of the committee.

And again in the penultimate paragraph the reference is to more than one licence, but in the final paragraph it's a single licence

Bolton and Bury are quite close so it stands to reason that an operator might want to cover the whole area

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

The official minutes aren't much help, and suggest it's the council causing the confusion as opposed to the press

Most obviously, the heading is "13. MISCONDUCT BY LICENSED PRIVATE HIRE DRIVER", while in fact the case is about a PH operator - it did involve a third party driver, and the operator may also be a driver, but the review was about an operator's licence per se.

The minutes also say: "It was explained to the driver that he could however provide a summary of the
evidence within his submissions."

Shouldn't that actually refer to the *operator*?

And again it's odd the way Bury Council is referenced, and also the way the fact that he's got two licenses is just introduced at random.

The latter part of the relevant text uses the plural *operator's licences* several times, but then says:


Which again reads like there's only one licence. Maybe that sounds a bit nitpicking, but if the only questionable thing was the singular/plural inconsistency then it wouldn't be worth mentioning. But it isn't

https://bolton.moderngov.co.uk/mgConver ... 2414&ISATT