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Cant remember if I posted this, but it amused me!
A view from Harraby
By
Wayne Casey (LL SC)
After the forthcoming thermo nuclear war, I very much expect that both myself and fellow residents of the district of Carlisle known as Harraby, will be powdered dust floating around the stratosphere, so that’s nice. It’s something to look forward to after the government stopped funding cheap heating for pensioners and the impending pensioner riots which are bound to follow, if not for the potential new market in hip operations.
The dystopian hell of the forthcoming holocaust naturally brings me to the travails of Cumberland Council, indeed, it makes me yearn for the above scenario to happen, and their proposed taxi and private hire licensing policy will lead many of my colleagues to the same conclusion.
To listen to people who have little, perhaps zero knowledge, and I wager in some cases cannot drive and have almost certainly never run their own businesses, discuss licensing policy of the taxi and private hire trades is a challenge. I use the word ‘challenge’ because the editor will alter the words I would prefer to use, so I thought I wouldn’t waste his time.
The committee spent many, many minutes discussing the situation in respect of age limits.
The DfT’s imaginatively titled document ‘Taxi and private hire vehicle licensing best practice guidance for licensing authorities in England’ states in respect of age limits on vehicles;
“Licensing authorities should not impose age limits for the licensing of vehicles instead they should consider more targeted requirements to meet their policy objectives on emissions, safety rating and increasing wheelchair accessible provision where this is low.”
Naturally, the committee then spent around 45 minutes discussing the new age policy for saloon vehicles, which would be 7. Not 5, not 6, not 4, not to infinity and beyond, but 7, a figure presumably picked out of thin air.
Following on from this, and continuing the theme of ignoring DfT guidance completely, they subsequently decided to have no age limit on wheelchair accessible vehicles. In footballing terms, this was a nutmeg that nobody saw coming.
I imagine this was based on the basis of having no evidence of any shortage of wheelchair accessible vehicles or no evidence of demand for wheelchair accessible vehicles, perhaps both, opinions vary, but rest assured it was based on zero statistical evidence.
At this point of the meeting one of the assembled taxi drivers went outside and threw himself into the River Derwent, this being a better option than either sitting in the meeting or banging his head on the desk, which presumably would have woken the now sleeping audience.
I wish the RNLI all the very best in their continued search.
It was a shame the driver drowned, inadvertently taking in a passing dog walker with him, because he’d have really enjoyed the discussion on the dress code.
The discussion went along the lines of blah, blah, blah.
Well it probably did, but due to the committee sitting at one end of the room, and the taxi trade sitting somewhere near Cockermouth, it was inaudible. I know for a fact they definitely mentioned the word ‘pizza’ at least once, because my dog’s ears pricked up.
Of course, whilst the DfT might wish a local authority would have a policy objective; this isn’t necessarily the case in Cumberland.
I mean, I might wish to have a policy objective of being a Gordon Ramsey type chef, but the stone cold truth is that whilst I can make a pretty decent Yorkshire Pudding, my beef is either overcooked or running around my back garden eating my dahlias.
Reading between the lines, whilst Cumberland Council are very keen on the saloon cars they license to be the super-dooper clean euro six, they aren’t quite as keen on their wheelchair accessible fleet being similar.
I understand this to a certain degree, after all, a wheelchair cab is expensive to purchase from new, but they aren’t exactly saying this, because, most probably, I could now go out there and buy a FX4S plus and run it as a taxi in Cumberland.
I imagine Cumberland Council is attempting to follow North Yorkshire council’s recent spectacular policy failure, which has led them within months to again re-look at their policy. (They gave away WAV licenses for free and still there wasn’t an increase in WAV’s).
Although North Yorkshires policy wasn’t a success, it wasn’t a failure – this seems to be local government speak for the new word which is ‘meh’ and if you don’t like this policy we have many, many others we haven’t dreamed up yet, but that is a sacrifice we are willing you to pay for.
The ability to read is the one great triumph of the British education system, now we can insult each other via the internet or threatening texts but sadly, the ability to understand is seemingly another matter.
“I can explain it to you, but I can't make you understand it.” As someone a lot smarter than me once was once quoted as saying.
Unitary authorities appear to be a huge government mistake, be this Durham (biggly) or North Yorkshire (shanful).
If you ever drive along the A69 into gods own county of Cumbria from Northumberland, you’ll notice a sign on the left hand side of the road which states ‘Cumbria’.
Some petty bureaucrat sent out his or her employees to tape over the ensign of ‘Cumbria’ with white gaffer tape.
This is despite Cumbria still being a county, but the local authority area being Cumberland, they didn’t even put the new Cumberland flag over it, just gaffer tape. This speaks volumes about our new licensing policy, which is about as refreshing as a thermo ballistic nuclear war.
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
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