Taxi Driver Online

Hmmm..... So you are saying that all HBC are failing to do is compile a survey to justify their limit on plate issues?Well maybe there is a reason as to why they are dragging their feet over this issue! Maybe that reason is because it is blatently obvious that there is NO unmet demand because a phoned taxi response is approx 5 mins all over Halton. You come out of the local supermarket and theres 20 Black Hacks staring you in the face. You come out of the clubs at the weekend and within 5-10 mins the streets are CLEAR of people wanting taxis! Is it a requirement that when Joe Public wants a cab that it HAS to be there in 1000th of a nanosecond???? Perhaps HBC can see the pointless ambitions of the politically correct brigade who choose to try and turn this country on its head by splitting hairs and spending hours manipulating the fine print to read how THEY want it to be read. Perhaps HBC is trying to protect the interests of all its drivers Hack and PH by not letting interfering little do gooders who know little to nothing about what is going on outside there own borough have their way!
If de limit suits your local borough and its drivers then happy days for you. Why you feel the need to meddle in the lives of others is beyond me.
If you really feel the need to be a 'do gooder' then try giving something to charity or do some volountry work in your community. With your attention focused on the real 'GOOD' you may not be compelled to meddle as much.

Heres the instructions for a quick survey for you:-

1: Pick up the phone
2: Dial a Halton taxi from inside Halton
3: Time how long it takes to arrive
4: When driver arrives 5 mins later pay him for wasting his time and admit to him that you are attempting to destroy his livelyhood.
5: Take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself 'Is my life really this sad?'
6: Go out and borrow some money and buy yourself a plate.
7: Wake every morning feeling good about the brand new, happy individual you have become.
8: Unite with your fellow cabbies and FIGHT de reg!!!!!!!!!

NICE ONE BETTY....NICE ONE..........J.D.&SUSSEX..consider youself told in the nicest possibly way!!.........mr T.....he..he..

If you had been in touch with what had transpired in Halton you would already know that in November 2004 Halton declined to have a survey.

Seeing that you are not familiar with what is taking place on the political front in your own back yard I have taken the opportunity to enlighten you.

First comes the report on 29th November 2004 followed by the minutes of the same meeting. I suggest you read both items very carefully.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 3
REPORT: Regulatory Committee
DATE: 29th November 2004
REPORTING OFFICER: Council Solicitor
SUBJECT: Taxi Deregulation
WARDS: Borough wide

1.0 PURPOSE OF REPORT

To determine the Council’s policy regarding taxi deregulation.

2. RECOMMENDED: That

(1) the Committee consider the there is no evidence of significant unmet demand in the Borough;

(2) consequently, the Council’s existing policy be confirmed; and

(3) the Department for Transport be advised accordingly.

3.0 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

3.1 The Council has a policy to limit the number of hackney carriages license to operate in the Borough to 267. Legislation does not allow any limit on the number of private hire vehicles licensed by the Council.

3.2 The fact that hackney carriage numbers are limited inevitably causes a market in hackney carriage plates. It is thought that vehicles change hands for a premium of up to £10/12,000.

3.3 Up until 1985 the Council had a completely free hand in limiting the number of hackney carriages within the Borough (by virtue of section 37 Town Police Clauses Act 1847).

3.4 Section 16 Transport Act 1985 changed the position. Since then, an application for a new hackney carriage plate can only be refused if the Council is satisfied that there is no significant demand for the services of hackney carriages which is unmet.

3.5 The Council must have the necessary evidence on which to be able to form such a view. Even if the Council is satisfied that demand is being met it still has a discretion to grant a new licence.

3.6 The question arises as to what evidence the Council should rely on. The normal way of doing this is to undertake an unmet demand survey. This type of survey is undertaken by various universities and can cost in excess of £15,000. The costs would be re-charged to the trade in increased fees. The Council has only undertaken one such survey since 1985 (which resulted in the current limits being adopted).

4. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

2.1 The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) issued a report last year which was strongly critical of the policy of limiting the numbers of hackney carriages. The OFT favours a policy of complete deregulation of numbers (effectively the same position as applies to private hire vehicles).

2.2 In response to the OFT report the Department for Transport (DfT) wrote to all taxi licensing authorities in June 2002 requesting them to review their policies and make public their conclusions by 30th April 2005.

2.3 The central point made by the DfT is that the Government believes that restrictions should only be retained where there is shown to be a clear benefit for the consumer.

2.4 The DfT suggest that the starting point is to look at the current (unofficial) value of hackney carriage plates in the Borough. If this is understood to be high this would indicate that there is a significant unmet demand for taxis in the area. This would then lead to a need for a survey to be undertaken.

3.0 THE POSITION IN HALTON AND THE GENERAL LOCALITY

3.1 A “high” value is a relative concept. The question is whether £10/12,000 should be considered to be “high”.

3.2 The following are examples of what is believed to be the (unofficial) value of plates in other areas:

 Chester 20K/25K
 Warrington 10K/12K
 St Helens 7K/10K
 Sefton 20K/25K
 Knowsley 20K/25K
 E/Port 12K/13K
 Liverpool 50K/55K
 Stockport 12K/20K
 Manchester 55K+
 Blackpool 40K/45K

3.3 It is clear that values in Halton are not high when compared with other areas. This implies that the Council can conclude that there is no significant unmet demand in the Borough and is under no obligation to commission a survey.

3.4 For completeness it should also be noted that the following local authorities in the area have already deregulated (and Liverpool deregulated and then re-regulated):

 Wirral
 Macclesfield
 Crewe
 Vale Royal

4.0 REPRESENTATIONS RECEIVED RELATING TO THE ISSUE

4.1 The Transport and General Workers Union is the largest single body representing taxi drivers in the country. It wrote to all licensing authorities in July 2004 setting out the case against deregulation. The experience of Liverpool and Birmingham is cited as examples of where deregulation led to a deterioration in the service provided to the community.

4.2 The Council’s Taxi Consultative Group has been asked to comment on this issue. The Group (which includes representatives from all parts of the trade) considered that there was no evidence of any significant unmet demand and that there should be no deregulation in the absence of such evidence.

5.0 OPTIONS OPEN TO THE COUNCIL

5.1 The following options are available to the Council:

 Maintain status quo
 Commission a demand survey
 Completely deregulate immediately
 Completely deregulate over a period of time
 Increase the number of hackney carriage plates to a new maximum number immediately
 Increase the number of hackney carriage plates to a new maximum number over a period of time

5.2 The starting point for all of the above should be a decision on the basic question of whether there is any significant unmet demand in the Borough at present. There is no evidence of significant unmet demand using the criteria put forward by the DfT. This implies that the most appropriate action is to maintain the status quo.

6. POLICY IMPLICATIONS

There are no policy implications should the Committee maintain the Council’s current policy. Otherwise the policy implications will depend on the action taken by the Committee.

7. OTHER IMPLICATIONS

There are no other implications should the Committee maintain the Council’s current policy.

...................................................................................................


REGULATORY COMMITTEE

At a meeting of the Regulatory Committee held on 29th November 2004 at the Town Hall, Runcorn.

Present: Councillors Philbin (Chairman), Cole, Cross, D. Inch, Lowe, Lloyd Jones, Pearsall and Wainwright.

Apologies for absence: Councillors Drakely, Gilligan and E. Ratcliffe.

Absence declared on Council business: None.

ITEMS DEALT WITH
UNDER POWERS AND DUTIES
EXERCISABLE BY THE COMMITTEE

Action

REG7 TAXI DEREGULATION

The Committee was advised that the Council had a policy to limit the number of hackney carriages licensed to operate in the Borough to 267. As hackney carriage numbers were limited inevitably this resulted in a market in hackney carriage plates. It was thought that vehicles change hands for a premium of up to £10/12,000.

It was noted that under Section 16 of the Transport Act 1985 an application for a new hackney carriage plate could only be refused if the Council were satisfied that there was no significant demand for the services of hackney carriages which was unmet. The Council must have the necessary evidence on which to be able to form such a view. Even if the Council was satisfied that demand was being met it still had a discretion to grant a new licence.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) had issued a report in 2003 which was strongly critical of the policy of limiting the numbers of hackney carriages. The OFT favoured a policy of complete deregulation of numbers (effectively the same position as applies to private hire vehicles).

In response to the OFT report, the Department for Transport (DfT) wrote to all taxi licensing authorities in June 2002 requesting them to review their policies and make public their conclusions by 30th April 2005.

The central point made by the DfT was that the Government believed that restrictions should only be retained where there was shown to be a clear benefit for the consumer.

The DfT suggested that the starting point was to look at the current (unofficial) value of Hackney Carriage plates in the Borough. If this was understood to be high this would indicate that there was a significant unmet demand for taxis in the area. This would lead to a need for a survey to be undertaken.

The Committee was advised on the unofficial value of plates in other nearby areas. It was clear that values in Halton were not high when compared with other areas. This implied that the Council could conclude that there was no significant unmet demand in the Borough and there was no obligation to commission a survey.

The Council’s Taxi Consultative Group had been asked to comment on the issue. The Group (which included representatives from all parts of the trade) considered that there was no evidence of any significant unmet demand and that there should be no de-regulation in the absence of such evidence.

RESOLVED: That

(1) the Committee considered that there was no evidence
of significant unmet demand in the Borough;

(2) consequently, the Council’s existing policy be confirmed; and Chief Executive

(3) the Department for Transport be advised accordingly.

Says you, and you could well be right. But a court will take the view that you are slightly biased.

Councils have a legal duty to assess taxi demand, if they restrict. That assessment must be independant of the council.

But if you are right and there is no SUD, then what have you to hide? And if the situation is that trade is so bad, then why on earth would anyone want to start up?

Not everyone is as thick as you imply.

_________________
IDFIMH

only you he..he T

First things first, lets introduce ourselves JD. I am speaking as a hackney owner driver and I have an obvious interest in this debate. You are now able to introduce yourself JD and tell me your personal interest and explain on what authority you can make slanderous allegations of illegal behaviour by Halton borough council.

Secondly, YOU are not enlightening me at all as I already have that document. YOU did not draft it. YOU just cut and paste that document and posted it on here. You expect some sort of credit for that level of enlightenment. Im sorry to have to inform you this JD but my son aged 5 and many other kids his age can cut and paste on a PC.
I have read both items very carefully many times and would like to know what EXACTLY it is your trying to point out to me. I would also like to hear YOUR wonderfully, enlightening point of view as to WHY Halton borough council are as you say breaking the law over this matter and what YOU think they hope to achieve by this. Now remember to try and do this in your OWN words and dont rush it. I should warn you however that you must have very good grounds and also be prepared to show those grounds to a court of LAW before you accuse HBC of acting illegaly so word your response with due care my freind!!!

I think you mean libellous allegations, but if you can't remember the difference then do what I do and use the generic term defamatory. For the record, slander is spoken defamation, libel is written.

So perhaps your grasp of basic legal principles is not as good as you think, in which case you are in rocky territory accusing JD of being wrong on taxi law?

Anyway, I'll leave JD to give you chapter and verse, but in the meantime I should point out that we've had an article on this website which essentially says the same as JD said earlier about Halton BC since last year, and this has not been challenged.

http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/quotalas.htm

_________________
Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Hmmmm.......Perhaps people would start up because it would be an extra source of income to add to their underpaid regular job. Perhaps they would start up because they saw it as a 'cushy number.' Perhaps they would start up with the intention offering rediculous discounts to corner the market and make it virtually impossible to make a living for every one else who is already struggling also resulting in working time regulation issues. The list of reasons goes on and on and on. A bright person could of thought up some of these reasons for themselves!!!!
I personally have nothing to hide . If you mean HBC then I doubt very much that they have anything to hide either . I do beleive that a £15,000 pointless survey with cost passed on to drivers in license fees is something that they probably cant be a***d with as it would be costing our drivers money to show you on the other side of the earth what WE in Halton know already. I have an obvious interest (my plate) and am stating MY point of view. All you do is quote documents and dodge giving us YOUR real reason for wanting to deregulate the whole country most of which you know nothing about!!! I'm sure one day if HBC feel the need, because of a court case or whatever reason they will conduct a survey and adopt a policy that suits HALTON within the limits of the law and not a policy that suits YOU!

You said a few posts back that the council have decided that new plates need to be new motors.

How many part-timers do you know that wish to spend up to £30,000 on a cab?

_________________
IDFIMH

Now you may think SUD surveys are pointless, for what it's worth I believe they are useless, but the gov and the courts say they are required.

And they write the rules.

_________________
IDFIMH

I believe in the next year or two no council will need to survey SUD, because no council will be allowed to restrict.

_________________
IDFIMH

This applied to those two plates and this happened approx 12 mths ago as the coucil felt that a couple more plates could be made available to up the number of wheelchair accessible cabs available to the public on a %disabled-%WCCabs basis. Nobody here has a problem with this but you still call this(HALTON) a regulated/limited borough. So this tells me that even a slow managed release of plates is not suitable to you. Im not sure that the council could justify making everybody have wheelchair cabs until the other legislation comes in 2012(I stand to be corrected on this!?!?!?!)
My view is that the local council should be in control of the situation and it should not be left to the whims of others!

And the local council implements them.

I believe you may be right! This does not mean however that I think its right! I am also confident that the council will read things their way and implement things their way!

BETTY is everthing o/k are you having problems.....mrT