He was absolutely right! Why bother setting any minimum standards, which is the government’s thinking that will stop ‘licence shopping’, when local authorities (if there are actually going to be any) can also set other local conditions of licensing? Are these people actually capable of having the privilege of hosting a functioning brain?


I could go through the whole of the meeting and pick things out, but I must be really stupid in not being convinced by the statement from Lillian Greenwood where she stated: “One of the potential advantages of moving from 263 licensing authorities to a smaller number is the potential for economies of scale and for them to be more efficient in the way that they offer that.”


Dear Lillian, do you really see it being more economic and more efficient for say two-thousand drivers going to one single Transport Authority to apply for/renew driver licences/vehicle licences than four or five individual local licensing authorities? You are certainly not going to save on staffing costs for a start. Especially when I keep reading that even Wolverhampton renewals are getting longer waiting times now.


It’s so evident that the local trades are well and truly doomed with the government clearly, in my opinion, set to ensure that global faceless apps will completely dominate and take over.


Electric U-turn


It seems to be that U-turns are quite a trend nowadays, so no surprise that Uber recently announced its own U-turn by reneging on its all-electric fleet ‘policy’ by 2030. This has been reported to have upset a lot of Uber drivers who have already made the change.


The reason as to why I am bringing this up is because around 2018 a Green councillor here put forward an out-of-the-blue proposed policy that all Brighton & Hove licensed vehicles should be fully electric by 2020! I hit the roof on this and demanded an extraordinary Trade Forum meeting to challenge this.


Uber turned up as a trade member with a couple of ‘suits’ fully supporting this policy and went into typical lengthy ‘Uber-speak’ in an attempt to catch the attention of the councillors who attended the meeting.


The Uber ‘suit’ stated that all of the Brighton & Hove private hire vehicles on its platform would be fully electric by 2020. Well, that would have been news to those drivers here! I scoffed at this saying not to believe


PHTM FEBRUARY 2026


a word that Uber says as anything it states is only for appeasement and to suck up to councillors. However, fortunately the proposed policy was withdrawn from the Green councillor. Did all the Brighton & Hove Uber private vehicles become fully electric in 2020? Did they heck!!!


Licensing fees


One topic that was spoken about at the Transport Select Committee meeting was the subject of licensing fees. So, this fits in nicely with the recently proposed rise in such fees by Lewes District Council next door to us where most of its 400 or so private hire drivers predominantly work in Brighton & Hove. Yep, the drivers pay Lewes licensing to predominantly work in Brighton & Hove, instead of those licensing fee being paid to Brighton & Hove. The same as Chichester, Southampton, Portsmouth, Havant and New Forrest drivers do.


I know that the local trade Lewes reps are exasperated over this rise and I can see why.


B&H: dual driver licence £380 going to £400 in April Lewes: dual driver licence £472.50 going to £567


B&H: HCV licence £230 going to £240 in April B&H: PHV licence £200 staying at £200 Lewes: HCV/PHV licence £308.50 going to £340 in April


How on earth can a driver’s dual licence for three years be £567!


I cannot see any justification for this, especially as Lewes District Council does not even have a dedicated taxi/PH licensing department unlike Brighton & Hove . In fact, Lewes licensing covers everything from sex shops to poodle parlours and ice-cream vans… and the rest.


The ex-chair of Lewes licensing has set up a petition setting out various demands about the justification for the proposed increase in fees. I had battles with him three years ago before he stood down, where I was raising the serious issues of his PH drivers removing/not displaying rear licence plates/door livery and so on, whilst predominantly working in Brighton. It got to the point where he told me that communications would not continue. However, good for him for sticking up for the Lewes trade.


Lastly, happy 2nd/3rd birthday to all the potholes in Brighton and Hove and hello to all the new ones that are being born at this time of the year!


59


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