Taxi Driver Online

John, I'm about half way through the list from Rupert's letter, but this is my sort of list.

Adur will allow WAVs to be licensed on demand.
Amber Valley have delimited.
Bassettlaw will allow WAVs to be licensed on demand (is that right Nigel?)
Blackpool are doing one of the new types of survey at present.
Cardiff have delimited.
Carrick are looking into it.
Castlepoint have delimited.
Chelmsford are setting a final date for delimitation.
Crawley have delimited.
Dover are in the process of setting a final date for delimitation.
East Northant will allow WAVs to be licensed on demand.
Exeter looking into it.
Guildford have delimited.
Hastings at the start of the delimit process.
Halow delimited.
Leicester have delimited.
Merthyr Tydfil in the process of setting a date for delimitation.
Nottingham are issuing loads per year, and seeing what happens.
Selby have delimited.
Slough are in the process of delimitation.
Solihul are issuing loads this year with a view to delimit next year.
Straford have delimited.
Teignbridge have just lost a court case over plate issues.
Woking is anyone guess.
Wokingham will allow WAVs to be licensed on demand from next year.
And according to PHM Wolverhampton are in the process of setting a date for delimitation.

Those are the ones that spring to mind at the mo, but as I said, I still have another 50 odd to look at.

Oh and if anyone wants a site to see all the councils in one go, then this one is brill http://www.tagish.co.uk/tagish/links/localgov.htm

_________________
IDFIMH

no 21 Calderdale
the following districs have de limited

Shelf, Brighouse, Sowerby Bridge, Todmorden, Hebden Bridge, Ripponden and Hepton, Elland.

the 8th Calderdale District is Halifax who still have limits, odd isnt it?

Late News

councillors in Halifax meet next week to decide if they want a survey in Halifax costing£15,000

The government has told councils if they want to continue limiting by numbers, surveys must be carried out to make sure there is no unmet demand

the councillors will be asked to sanction another survey to help decide if limits in halifax should be scrapped.

the report says"One concern is that if there is no upper limit there will be a rush of applications causing an over supply of vehicles and lack of space on the ranks" according to the legal officer.

my bet is no change.

Perhaps the legal officer should then pay for the survey himself.

_________________
IDFIMH

(herself)

37 taxis left in the racket, shouldnt they pay?
I will ask.

A sore point, but you are right.

Still even if they have to pay £500 every three years, it's still a cheap price to keep quotas.

But hopefully they wont have to pay for any survey. If the gov sort out the zoning issue i.e. outlaw it, then those licensed in the un-restricted areas will be able to join in the spoils.

Yes Mr Yorkie, even you.

_________________
IDFIMH

Thank you for you for that help Sussex.



On speaking to the licencing officer this morning, she tells me Teignbridge are still restricted but are investigating the current situation. A report is in the proccess of being compilled with a view to changing their policy.

She reliably informs me there has been no court case with regard to Hackney Carriage numbers.



Wokingham is derestricted, a WAV is mandatory to all new applicants.



Speaking to the head of licensing this morning I was informed Wolverhampton are still restricted, they are going to consider de restriction in the future but there is nothing concrete as yet.

The one council I know of that has re-restricted since 2001 is Bolton, does anyone know of any more? You forgot knowsley Sussex.

Best wishes

JD

Right area, wrong manor from old Sussex. It should have been Carrick.

Earlier this year the council decided not to defend a number of appeals against taxi vehicle license refusals. http://committee.carrick.gov.uk/documen ... 221LI.html

They could or perhaps should have settled out of court, but on Friday 2nd July in Truro Crown Court, 'the judge was scathing in his summing up of the council's actions'. And those comments came from the horse's mouth.

If you e-mail me I will be able to tell you more.

_________________
IDFIMH

I've just read this about Windsor, and it's a link and a half.

http://icberkshire.icnetwork.co.uk/0100 ... _page.html

I see the existing trade think the best way to get more cars out at night, is too make it easier to get more drivers.

Like reducing bans for the bad guys.

_________________
IDFIMH

It takes some finding, but Reigate seem to to have already decided to de-limit pending a complete review of just about everything.
http://www.reigate-banstead.gov.uk/Imag ... 5-4827.pdf

From the information received so far there are 125 Councils that still restrict numbers. Several of these councils are presently going through a policy review and the list of restricted councils will most definitely fall.

There are a number of Councils omitted from the regulated list for the simple reason that the final stages of de restriction have not yet been carried out.

For example, there are several Councils that have said they will de-restrict but until the final seal of approval has been granted they shall remain on the list as Regulated Authorities.

There are several Authorities that have deregulated who only licence WAV type vehicles. Many of these Authorities also have in place Quality vehicle age policy.

There was a strict criteria I tried to work to, that criteria is as follows. For those Authorities that have not already de limited I gave them the following the abbreviations.

DP = Delimitation Pending PD = Partial Delim DU = Delimitation underway

I classed the DP Authorities as still regulated and kept them in the original regulated list of 2001.

PD Authorities were contacted by myself to confirm their level of partial delimitation. I found no case of partial delimitation albeit that some Authorities stipulated wav type vehicles. However, there was no restriction on applicants obtaining a licence, provided the vehicle Quality standard was met.

DU Authorities were Authorities I deemed to be in the advance stage of De limitation. There are a small amount that fit this category, namely Hastings to mention just one. It is because of the advanced stage of de limitation that I excluded these Authorities from the restricted list.

There was a suggestion by Sussex that certain Authorities might be de-restricted but after talking to all but one of these Authorities I found that not to be the case. Adur is the only Authority that I haven’t so far been able to contact.

Dover is one of the Authorities that had a question mark against it and it transpires that a survey is taking place very soon to help the Council decide to change, or keep the current policy. So said the licensing official I spoke to.

Merthyr Tydfil is another Authority but having spoken to the licensing officer it transpires that no decision has yet been taken on de restriction.

Nottingham council have a meeting in October on the matter of de restriction and Wolverhampton still restricted numbers but they are going to consider it in the future.

Teignbridge are still restricted but are investigating the current situation with a view to de restricting.

Slough de limitation has yet to be agreed by the full council.

The percentage drop of the regulated 145 councils from the 2001 list is 11%. That suggests the current number of Councils throughout England and Wales who limit by numbers is now 125 and the total overall percentage level is now 34%.

From my discussions with the various licensing officers it appears they are all having difficulty with the wording in the Governments advice on Taxi restriction. None more so than the wording that states, “Councils should not restrict Taxi numbers unless it can be shown that restricting such numbers would be beneficial to the public at large”.

Current updated list.

1 Adur 2 Ashford 3 Aylesbury Dale, 4 Babergh 5 Barnsley 6 Barrow in Furness 7 Basildon 8 Basingstoke 9 Bath and North East Somerset ua
10 Bedford 11 Blackburn Darwen ua 12 Blyth Valley, 13 Bolton RR 14 Bournemouth ua, 15 Bradford 16 Braintree17 Brighton and Hove ua, 18 Burnley19 Carrick 20 Cherwell 20 Chester 21 Chester le street, 22 Chorley 23 Colchester 24 Congleton 25 Conwy 26 Copeland 27 Corby 28 Denbighshire 29 Dover 30 Durham 31 Easington 32 East Lindsey 33 East Riding, 34 Eastbourne 35 Eastleigh, 36 Ellesmere port 37 Exeter 38 Fylde 39 Gosport, 40 Great Yarmouth, 41 Gwynedd, 42 Halton ua, 43 Harrogate 44 Havant, 45 High Peak 46 Huntingdonshire 47 Hyndburn, 48 Ipswich 49 Kerrier 50 Kettering 51 Kings Lynn 52 Kingston upon Hull 53 Kirklees 54 Lancaster, 55 Leeds 56 Lincoln 57 Liverpool 58 Luton ua
59 Maidstone 60 Manchester 61 Merthyr Tydfil 62 Middlesbrough ua 63 Mole Valley 64 New Forest 65 Newcastle on Tyne 66 Newcastle under Lyme 67 North East Lincolnshire ua, 68 Nottingham ua 69 Oldham 70 Oxford 71 Pendle 72 Penwith 73 Plymouth ua 74 Poole ua
75 Portsmouth ua 76 Preston 77 Reading ua, 78 Reigate and Banstead 79 Restormal 80 Ribble Valley 81 Richmondshire 82 Rochdale, 83 Rotherham 84 Rugby 85 Salford 86 Scarborough 87 Sefton 88 Slough 89 Solihull 90 South Bedfordshire 91 South Ribble 92 South Tyneside
93 Southampton ua 94 Southend on sea ua 95 St Edmundsbury 96 St Helens 97 Stevenage 98 Stockport 99 Stoke on Trent ua 100 Swindon ua 101 Tameside 102 Teignbridge 103 Test Valley 104 Thanet 105 Thurrock ua 106 Torbay ua 107 Torfaen 108 Torridge 109 Trafford 110 Tunbridge wells, 111 Wakefield 112 Walsall 113 Wansbeck 114 Warrington ua 115 Watford 116 West Somerset 117 Weymouth 118 Wigan 119 Windsor and Maidenhead ua, 120 Wolverhampton 121 Worthing 122 Wrexham 123 Wycombe 123 Wyre 124 Wyre Forest 125 York ua.

This list will be kept up to date so if anyone has any input you're contribution will be most helpfull.

Best wishes

JD

I think Eastbourne will allow wheel chair taxis to be licensed by new applicants.

Of course if they de-restrict, then it shouldn't cause any headaches.

But it's a question that only has one answer, and that's it can't be shown unless you survey thousands of resisdents, and get the answer that they don't want any more cabs.

What's the chances of getting that reply?

Sussex,

arguments comming to the for is can we afford the ranks for all these taxis?

it will reduce the revenue of on street parking

got that one today.

From what I can gather Eastbourne is still restricted.

I made the mistake of omitting Sunderland from the list and leaving Newcastle in. It was suggested that Newcastle had stopped issuing licences until the outcome of an unmet demand survey had taken place, does anyone know the current situation. I suppose it looks like I’ll have to contact Newcastle to get the latest state of play.

Best wishes

JD