Taxi Driver Online

Last thread on this was specifically about tariffs, but this covers a lot of ground. Not much in the way of fine detail, but what's obvious is that it could well turn a lot of local markets upside down, for good or bad

Some interesting stuff about 'hotspots', testing and age rules, though, although nothing particularly out of the ordinary.


Taxi licensing policy to cover North Yorkshire is set to be adopted

https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/news/arti ... be-adopted

Taxi drivers are due to operate across the whole of North Yorkshire as councillors will meet to discuss the views of hundreds of people who took part in a consultation on plans to adopt a county-wide policy.

Members of our executive will meet next week to discuss plans to introduce a single hackney carriage and private hire licensing policy from the spring.

The existing seven borough and district councils currently have their own hackney carriage and private hire licensing policies. But ahead of the launch of the new North Yorkshire Council delivering all local services from April 1, the executive’s members will be asked to endorse a new single policy for the county.

The new policy incorporates the Department for Transport’s (DfT) taxi and private hire vehicle best practice guidance and statutory standards, to ensure that the public continues to be provided with safe and accessible vehicles. It also provides a coherent regulatory framework for the trade across the county.

Council leader, Cllr Carl Les, said: “The hackney carriage and private hire licensing policy for North Yorkshire plays an integral part in demonstrating the new council’s commitment to ensuring that the public is provided with safe and accessible hackney carriages and private hire vehicles.

“As a single local authority for North Yorkshire, it also ensures hackney carriage and private hire licence holders and taxi operators across the county are treated equally.

"Following feedback from the trade and the public, some changes to the policy have been made, and I’d like to thank those that took the time to share their views.

"The adoption of this policy is only the start. No doubt in the future, there will be changes and improvements made as we move forward as a unitary authority."

Between 25 October and 16 January, we consulted on the draft policy, offering licence holders, taxi operators and the public the opportunity to share their views.

About 300 responses were received, along with several comments, which have helped to shape the hackney carriage and private hire licensing policy for North Yorkshire Council.

As a result of this, some recommendations have been made. These include removing the proposed five-year age limit of a vehicle for all new licence applications and increasing the maximum age that a vehicle can be licensed to 10 years, in the hope of reducing financial costs on anyone wishing to enter the trade.

To ensure the above recommendation does not have any adverse effects on a vehicle’s condition, it has been proposed to change the frequency of testing. Vehicles aged up to five years old will require testing once a year, vehicles aged between five and seven years will need two tests per year, and vehicles aged over seven years old will require three tests per year. All vehicles will require an MOT as well.

Although feedback to the consultation was positive, 52 per cent of respondents disagreed with the proposal for a single zone for North Yorkshire. A total of 45 per cent of people who took part also disagreed with the proposal to impose no quantity restrictions.

Comments have been reviewed and despite some reluctance to a single zone and the proposal not to impose any quantity restrictions on hackney carriages, there is clear guidance as to why these measures should still be adopted.

The DfT’s best practice guidance recommends the abolition of zones for a single authority to ensure the licensing process is consistent across the county and customers are treated fairly, allowing the market to determine the level of supply. And despite a fear from the trade of 'hotspot' areas, evidence from other authorities that have followed a similar approach has indicated that any negative impacts tend to level out over time.

A single zone also encourages environmental efficiencies with the potential for fewer empty journeys, a wider distribution of wheelchair-accessible vehicles (WAVs) and efficiency savings for the council, with one set of rules and tariff of fares.

Despite 60 per cent of respondents agreeing that not all vehicles should be WAVs at this time, the council is aware that there should be adequate provision across the county. Age limits will not be applied to designated WAVs, which allows for a wider scope of vehicles to be licensed, in addition to a commitment to develop and maintain an inclusive service plan within 18 months of the policy being adopted.

More than 60 per cent of respondents also agreed that all applicants for a hackney carriage and private hire driver’s licence must pass an approved practical driving assessment. And some 53 per cent agreed that new applicants for driver and operator licences should be required to complete an approved disability awareness training session before a licence is granted.

Cllr Les, who will assume the leadership of the new council from 1 April, added: “It is imperative that every single person using a hackney carriage or private hire vehicle can do so in the knowledge that the vehicle is safe and the driver has carried out the necessary training sessions.

“Not all disabilities are visual, so I’m pleased that the results have shown that drivers and operators must complete an approved disability awareness training before being granted a licence. We are committed to looking at the demand for WAVs and options to increase provision in the near future. We also hope to do so in partnership with disabled user groups across North Yorkshire.”

If approved by the county council’s executive next week (7 February), the new policy will be adopted from 1 April, along with a single set of licensing fees for both hackney carriage and private hire vehicles and a maximum set of fares for hackney carriages.

Can't see much of an issue for PH as in these times cars working cross-border is the norm.

Suspect there will be a few hackneys working the busier ranks they previously couldn't, but I don't think it will be the end of the world for the hackney trade.

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IDFIMH

Suspect it's all pretty old school in that kind of area, though, so I'd guess the impact will be greater than if the same happened in areas where cross-bordering is currently the norm.

Looks like some areas will be derestricted as well, so that along with the tariff harmonisation is bound to cause a bit of disruption.

And the fact that it's all happening effectively overnight won't help things either

...and there's this. Although this is basically the same stuff from the same chap who's been saying it for a couple of years now. So can't see what he's saying having any impact at this late stage.


New Harrogate district taxi rules will be a ‘disaster’, warns cabbie

https://thestrayferret.co.uk/new-harrog ... ns-cabbie/

A Ripon cabbie has said new rules governing local taxi drivers will be a “disaster” for drivers and people relying on the service in rural areas.

North Yorkshire County Council is next week expected to introduce a single hackney carriage and private hire licensing policy from the spring.

The existing seven district councils, including Harrogate, currently have their own hackney carriage and private hire licensing policies.

But their looming abolition on April 1 prompted councillors to run a consultation between October 25 and January 16 on a new policy that would harmonise the rules across North Yorkshire.

Fifty-two per cent of respondents disagreed with the key proposal of introducing a single zone for North Yorkshire, which would allow cabbies to operate across the county rather than only in their districts. However, the idea still looks set to go ahead.

Richard Fieldman, who owns Ripon firm A1 Cars and runs a Facebook group that includes 52 taxi drivers in Ripon and Harrogate, said: “Making it one zone will mean that at peak times drivers will target hotspots, such as Harrogate on a Saturday night, and leave rural areas with no taxis. It’s common sense that people will drive to maximise their earning potential.

“It will be a disaster for us and a disaster for people who live in quieter areas because they won’t be able to get a taxi at busy times.

“The same policy has been tried in other areas and it just leads to some streets being swamped with taxis so it’s bad for other road users as well.”

Mr Fieldman also criticised the council’s proposal to end the current restrictions on the number of hackney carriages — even though 45% of consultees opposed this. The Harrogate district limit is currently 148.

He said this would encourage private hire taxi drivers to switch to hackney carriages to avoid their £132 a year operator’s licence, which would “flood the limited space there is already”.

Mr Fieldman also hit out at draft new rules that would mean hackney carriage licence holders have to get three MOTs a year on cars that are more than seven years old. Currently vehicles up between five and nine-years-old have to have two MOTs a year.

A council spokesman said the new policy incorporated Department for Transport’s taxi and private hire vehicle best practice guidance and allowed the market to determine the level of supply.

He added: “Despite a fear from the trade of ‘hotspot’ areas, evidence from other authorities that have followed a similar approach has indicated that any negative impacts tend to level out over time.”

The Conservative leader of North Yorkshire County Council, Cllr Carl Les, said: "The hackney carriage and private hire licensing policy for North Yorkshire plays an integral part in demonstrating the new council’s commitment to ensuring that the public is provided with safe and accessible hackney carriages and private hire vehicles.

“As a single local authority for North Yorkshire, it also ensures hackney carriage and private hire licence holders and taxi operators across the county are treated equally."

If approved by the county council’s executive next week, the new policy will be adopted from April 1, along with a single set of licensing fees for both hackney carriage and private hire vehicles and a maximum set of fares for hackney carriages.

Heaven forbid.

Drivers actually going to where the work is rather than sit around twiddling their thumbs.

Whatever next.

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IDFIMH

I very much doubt it's the operator's license fees that will be the main reason drivers will swap, it will be the weekly fees to operators that will be the deciding factor.

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IDFIMH

Wasn't expecting this, but of course a lot of the official stuff on this topic has been simply press releases from the new council. Which, while quite detailed, will brush over what's going on behind the scenes in terms of different attitudes and disagreement.

And, of course, that would be the case even under a single local authority, but when there's several council involved in the merger, each with councillors, officials, LOs and local trades all with conflicting views and interests...


Council reconsiders one zone taxi policy in North Yorkshire after disability fears

http://www.hambletontoday.co.uk/council ... ity-fears/

A decision on merging seven North Yorkshire taxi zones into one has been postponed after taxi drivers and disabled people claimed the move would be a retrograde step.

Opponents of North Yorkshire County Council’s proposed taxi policy had told a meeting of the authority’s executive it would lead to the clogging up of taxis in town centres while leaving sparse cover in rural areas, particularly for wheelchair users.

A meeting of the authority’s executive heard that while a working group of elected members with significant experience of licensing had made a series of recommendations which the council’s officers had “tossed aside like a pair of old slippers” and come up with a series of different proposals.

The meeting was also told claims a consultation over the taxi policy had showed most people were against it and council’s leadership appeared to be reneging on pledge to abide by its results.

Nick Moxon, chairman of North Yorkshire Disability Forum, said: “The suggestion that one zone rather than seven will enable wheelchair users to find taxis on ranks in future lacks any credible evidence.”

The meeting heard concerns that with a dearth of wheelchair-accessible taxis in many areas of the county, if taxis drivers were permitted to sit on ranks miles away, wheelchair users could be left with no means of transport.

Councillors were told there were no or scant wheelchair-accessible taxi services from numerous North Yorkshire stations and buses were not an acceptable alternative as wheelchair users could not safely use many rural bus stops.

The meeting heard while a high-profile policy of the council was to improve transport access for disabled people, there was nothing in the new taxi policy that would increase the number of wheelchair accessible taxis.

One Harrogate-based taxi driver told the meeting his colleagues had said if the policy was introduced they would immediately give up their wheelchair-accessible vehicles as they would not be viable.

He said: “The vast majority, if not all, of the Hackney carriage trade is totally against the proposals to create a one zone authority for the purpose of taxi trading as this will lead to certain livelier areas becoming swamped at peak times, leaving quieter rural areas with no supply at all, leaving residents in those areas vulnerable to getting home safely.”

Karl Battersby, the council’s corporate director of business and environmental services, said the authority was aware of the need for more wheelchair-accessible taxis and that officers intended to review its policies in 18 months.

The meeting heard the proposed policy incorporates the Department for Transport’s taxi and private hire vehicle best practice guidance and statutory standards, to ensure that the public continued to be provided with safe and accessible vehicles.

Councillors heard it would also provide a coherent regulatory framework for the trade across the county and that hackney carriage and private hire licence holders and taxi operators across the county would be treated equally.

The authority’s executive member for open to business, Councillor Derek Bastiman, said the working group’s findings had not been tossed aside.

However, the executive agreed to postpone considering the proposed policy until later this month in order to examine the working group’s recommendation to allow vehicles of up to 15 years in age to be licensed to help during the cost of living crisis.

Aye, right

Either they're mandatory WAVs, in which case they've no choice, or they're not really going to just dump them

Lots of wishful thinking from the new council going on here, and also lots of vested interests and exaggeration from the trade, but difficult to assess the reality as outsiders like us

Methinks the council is going through the motions.

Maybe they didn't do an Equalities Impact Assessment.

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IDFIMH

According to The Stray Ferret it didn't take too long to review the situation.

https://thestrayferret.co.uk/local-cabb ... e-created/

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IDFIMH

Harrogate cabbie criticises council after taxi licensing meeting

https://thestrayferret.co.uk/harrogate- ... g-meeting/



A Harrogate district taxi driver has criticised North Yorkshire County Council over a licensing policy following a meeting with a senior councillor.

Cabbies from Harrogate, Ripon and the GMB Union met with Conservative councillor Derek Bastiman, executive councillor for open to business, over the new single zone policy in North Yorkshire yesterday.

Under the plan, the new North Yorkshire Council will create a single licensing policy for hackney carriages and private hire vehicles in the entire county.

It will mean drivers in Harrogate can operate anywhere in North Yorkshire, whereas they are currently restricted to the Harrogate district.

After the proposal was announced, drivers predicted it would cause “chaos” and called for a meeting with the council over the policy.

Following the meeting with Cllr Bastiman, drivers criticised the council over the continuing with the proposal.

Richard Fieldman, who has run his taxi company for 28 years in Ripon, told the Stray Ferret that he felt the council “did not know what it was doing”.

He said: “The top and bottom of it is they have not got a clue what they are doing. I have said before, this is going to cause destruction for the trade.”

Mr Fieldman added that some drivers would lose out under the new system.

He said cabbies raised concern over the policy and potential new fees and fare with Cllr Bastiman.

However, Mr Fieldman said he felt that the trade was “fighting a losing battle”, but that added they would continue to oppose the changes until the new system begins next month.

In response, Cllr Bastiman told the Stray Ferret:

“I can confirm that the meeting was very cordial.

“Driver’s comments were taken away with an assurance that following a meeting that I will arrange with the relevant officers hopefully next week, a full response will be provided to the representative from the GMBU who offered to circulate to those operators present at the meeting.

“Those present were happy with this proposal.”

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IDFIMH

County-wide zone has damaged taxi businesses, says Ripon councillor

Some taxi drivers have seen their businesses damaged due to the implementation of a single hackney carriage zone for North Yorkshire, according to a councillor.

Cllr Barbara Brodigan, Liberal Democrat councillor for Ripon Ure Bank and Spa, delivered a 238-strong petition to North Yorkshire Council’s ruling Conservative executive this morning that protests against the abolition of the previous seven zones which covered each former district council area.

The changes came into effect on April 1 and means drivers can now operate across the county, rather than being limited to areas such as the former Harrogate district.

But Cllr Brodigan said it had resulted in drivers flooding into urban areas such as Harrogate while rural villages and market towns had been left without taxis.

As part of the petition, residents were surveyed on the impact of the new single zone. Cllr Brodigan claimed one person was overcharged by £20 because a taxi driver got lost and that vulnerable residents are “wary” of drivers they don’t recognise.

Cllr Brodigan said: “In Harrogate they are having to find extra spaces due to the influx of taxis. Over supply of taxis in hotspots are leaving rural and market towns empty.”

Despite the single zone already being operational, a report that went before the executive said there had been a mistake in relation to the abolition of the previous seven hackney carriage zones.

Councillors were asked in the report to retrospectively confirm the abolition of the zones again to provide “emphatic clarity to its position”.

However, Ripon-based Richard Fieldman, who represented 70 hackney cab drivers, urged councillors to delay the decision as legal advice he received suggested the decision should be made during a full meeting of the council and not by its executive.

Mr Fieldman said: “There’s a straightforward statutory process and North Yorkshire Council failed to follow this process.

“On behalf of those I speak for I ask you not to compound an already bad position by passing an illegal position but instead refer the matter to full council for full consideration.”

In response, Cllr Greg White and the council’s chief legal officer Barry Khan both said they were satisfied that the executive had the right to make the decision.

The executive then voted unanimously to confirm the abolition of the seven zones and to create the single county-wide zone.

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IDFIMH

well it's not like they couldn't have predicted what would happen.

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

Taxi drivers threaten judicial review over new single zone



Taxi drivers have threatened legal action against North Yorkshire Council’s decision to abolish hackney carriage zones.

Senior councillors backed the introduction of a county-wide zone on April 1 at a meeting last Tuesday (October 17). It means drivers can now operate anywhere across the county, rather than being limited to areas such as the former Harrogate district.

Taxi drivers say this has led to a range of problems, including drivers flocking to popular urban areas while ignoring less profitable rural areas.

Now licensing consultant David B Wilson has claimed the decision to introduce the single zone was unlawful and has threatened action.

In a letter to Barry Khan, the council’s monitoring officer, seen by the Stray Ferret, Mr Wilson gave notice that drivers had instigated a judicial review pre-action protocol.

He urged the authority to find a resolution to the matter and investigate why the council’s executive had legally approved the measure.

Mr Wilson said: “Before instructing solicitors to pursue an application for judicial review, including service of the pre-action protocol letter before action, my clients have instructed me to write to you in the hope this matter can be finally resolved without the need for either party to incur significant further costs.

“As futile as it may be, as the challenged resolution was made with legal advice provided by you (monitoring officer) and Laura Venn (deputy monitoring officer), for the sake of completeness, my clients ask you to review the law and reconsider whether the council has acted lawfully when purportedly passing an extension resolution by the executive on 17 October 2023.”

The move comes after Ripon-based taxi driver Richard Fieldman urged councillors to delay the decision on October 17 as legal advice he received suggested the decision should be made during a full meeting of all 90 councillors rather than by its 10-person executive.

However, in response, Cllr Greg White and the council’s chief legal officer Barry Khan both said they were satisfied the executive had the right to make the decision.

The executive then voted unanimously to confirm the abolition of the seven zones and to create the single county-wide zone.

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IDFIMH

Is Mr Wilson going to front up the £50,000 needed?

And should that happen and the drivers succeed in their quest, what's stopping the council doing the same thing again?

Diddly f***ing squat is the answer.

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IDFIMH