Hi

Just a heads up so say that there is another major Taxi meeting on Wednesday of this week at Newcastle Labour Club at 7.30pm.

We've been informed by the Chairman that Northumbria Police are going to be present and also David O’Brien from the licensing division of the City Council.

......should be interesting to hear what their views are.....

Hopefully another protest won't be needed!

Chris

Hi GA

Cheers for your post.

The meeting went fantastically well. We had around 100 drivers there (which again was a little less than we hoped) and many of them expressed their views and ideas surrounding the problems we have at the moment.

I believe that the Northumberland police sergeant was surprised but impressed with the passion many drivers had.

If I remember correctly, he was the Head Liaison Officer of Environmental issues with Northumbria police - don’t quote me on that.

What we didn’t expect was being informed immediately that Northumbria police have already been given a fund to help rectify the “flimping” by means of stopping Private Hire vehicles and checking their data etc.

Covert operations are planned from next week onwards with no time specified until the Police believe the problem has been “nipped in the bud”.

They also plan operations whereby they will be seen to be doing something eg stopping vehicles randomly (in police vehicles) and checking data heads etc. Also the CCTV Police control room has been informed of what to look out for and any Private Hire vehicle “ranked up” somewhere plying for hire will now get moved on and/or investigated.

We were assured that the police will help as best they can and are determined to crack down on this. He confirmed that the police are lenient with most Newcastle Hackney Taxis as they know how difficult our job is (that we obviously make their life easier by taking drunks home) and said an unwritten law allows taxis to rank up outside most bars as we have little to no rank space - I believe there are less than 100 rank spaces for 780 taxis.

What the officer did say is that he does not want a repeat of our protest and will do anything to stop that from happening again. What he is very afraid of is the possibility of a protest on a Saturday night whereby 200 to 300 hackney taxis boycott the city centre and let the police sort the problem out.


The Councillor said that they are working very closely with the police and have already signed an agreement with an outside agency for their members to try to get into Private Hire vehicles illegally. They are then told to ask the driver to take them to a certain destination whereby they are being met with an Enforcement Officer from Newcastle and a Northumbria police officer. We were told that they actually went out on Saturday night and caught 9 drivers by this method. All now being prosecuted. 6 were from Newcastle Private Hire companies and 3 out of town. The Enforcement Officers are now working until 3 or 4 in the morning and not going home at 12 as they did previously.


We have been told that this will be ongoing and at no point will the Council give details of when or where they plan to attack. They have many people in the agency from young females to older couples so unfortunately, picking up the “easy targets” may not be the ideal scenario for the flimpers.

I couldn’t have wished for a better outcome and certainly believe the Council and Northumbria police will cut down on flimping dramatically. I certainly don’t believe it will be stopped completely, but if the police can prosecute 9-10 drivers per week, I don’t think it takes a genius to understand that drivers will think twice if they could lose their licence for the sake of a £5 job.

Also, the council will start to crack down on things such as wrong top signs being used and illegal vehcile advertising etc. The standards are getting raised now and hopefully will continue.

Chris

The Councillor said that they are working very closely with the police and have already signed an agreement with an outside agency for their members to try to get into Private Hire vehicles illegally

As I see it by informing the trade that they are going to carry out these "test purchases", any PH driver stupid enough to carry on with the practice of picking up unbooked fares deserves all they get. They know the rules.

Isnt the British Bobby just wonderful when he doing the Hackneyed worlds bidding...he may not be so wonderful as he is writing you a Ticket for speeding. he's a bit like the Curates Egg...."excellent, in parts".