grandad wrote:
now are you saying that an individual driver can demand a license for a lesser period than 3 years? And if that is the case and the cost of a 3 year license is say £300.00, how much should the charge be for the lesser period?
Likewise with an operators license. Are you saying that an individual can demand a license for a lesser period than 5 years and if the cost of the 5 year license is say £500.00, how much should the license for the lesser period cost?
Your further question concerning the fees that authorities are levying for the extended licences. Generally, licence fees cannot be used as a revenue raising tool and should only cover the costs of the licensing regime (see R (on the application of Hemming) and others v The Lord Mayor and Citizens of Westminster in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court). In relation to taxi licence fees levied under ss53 and 70 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, there are further restrictions on what can be recovered via the licence fees.
As a result of this it is quite apparent that a 3-year licence fee cannot simply be triple the 1-year fee, or a 5-year one five-fold the cost of an annual licence. Whilst there can be some increase over the basic annual fee, it must be carefully calculated to fall within the limitations imposed by ss53 and 70.
And the senior licensing officer in Manchester stated that the only difference in issuing a 1 or 5 year licence was changing the number on it from 1 to a 5, and there was no increase in the fee in Manchester for a 5 year ops licence.
