CROSS-BORDER QUANDARY
PORTSMOUTH PH DRIVERS LICENSED IN WOLVERHAMPTON LEADS TO FEARS OF DROP IN STANDARDS
Dozens of PHVs in Portsmouth are registered elsewhere prompting concerns about a ‘lack of oversight’ of these drivers and an inability for the council to make them comply with its rules. According to The News, Portsmouth City Council licensing committee vice-chairman, Scott Payter-Harris, said this number had increased ‘massively’ in recent years with PH drivers looking for cheaper and quicker application processes overseen by other councils. “If you are going to work in Portsmouth you should be licensed in Portsmouth - it’s a two-way street,” he said. “We lose oversight of these drivers if they are licensed by other local authorities. That’s concerning.” Laws were relaxed in 2015 under the Deregulation Act meaning drivers no longer needed to live or operate in the local authority area in which they were licensed. Since then, the number of licences issued in Wolverhampton has increased more than 15-fold, earning the council millions of pounds in fees. A spokesman for that council said it had easy-to-use processes, making it more attractive to would-be taxi/PH drivers, but that it still enforced strict standards. “Whilst many licensing authorities still require months of appointments and form filling, City of Wolverhampton Council’s process is online and all documents can be sub- mitted simultaneously, allowing for simple and fast processing, prior to attending the council offices for an in-person meeting, where drivers’ identity and right to work in the UK is verified,” they said. “Whilst the application process may be easy, the standards required to be granted a licence are not, with only 55 per cent passing the driver training programme.” They added that the council “takes its responsibilities in controlling and supervising the vehicles it licenses across
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the country very seriously” and carried out “multi- ple” compliance monitoring opera- tions every week. Peter Sutherland, who represents Uber drivers in Portsmouth, said: “There are three factors which make it more expensive to be licensed in Portsmouth compared to the likes of Havant or Gosport or East Hampshire,” he said. “The biggest is that vehicles in Portsmouth can’t be more than four years old but you also have the requirement to install CCTV - which can cost up to £500 - and the licensing fee.” Mr Sutherland, who is licensed by Portsmouth City Council, said many Uber drivers favoured the use of neighbouring councils as a result, saving them thousands of pounds. “From a safety perspective, I don’t think there’s a great concern,” he added. “When passengers book a taxi they look for the vehicle registration and the company they booked with and anyone can raise issues with that infor- mation for councils to then carry out enforcement.” However, he said he believed national rules should be brought in to require all taxis and PHVs to install CCTV sys- tems to improve safety for both passengers and the driver. A spokesman for Portsmouth council said it had “close work- ing relationships” with other local authorities and that its officers undertook joint enforcement action with them and that national guidance had also been introduced by the DfT to ensure councils have common minimum standards. However, emails sent by a city council licensing officer, seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, describe the prevalence of drivers licensed outside the city as “madness”. “There is nothing we can do to prevent “out-of-towners” from entering the city,” they said. “We used to know every driver in Portsmouth. However, if you walk around Havant or Portsmouth you will see Chichester Uber vehicles, Southampton and even a Leicester vehicle in the area.” Claire Udy, the chairwoman of the city council licensing committee, said there were “still concerns about how the system is working”. “It’s frustrating that licences can be issued by another council that may not reflect local circumstances” she said. “There’s still a lot that could be done nationally in terms of reviewing and updating the law.”
APRIL 2022
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