fee since 1st January 2004, and that the council should let the Ombuds- man know how it proposed to do this, and in six months’ time prepare a report on what actions it has taken and what remedies it has provided. The second report was against West Somerset District Council, on the issue of that magic syndrome reaching epidemic proportions, the removal of seats from multi-seat vehicles. The driver in this particular case com- plained that the council didn’t deal properly with the licensing of his vehicle, and delayed in informing him that his vehicle did not comply with the council’s regulations.
Now I do have to say that I have definitely heard of this one before! – and it has come across my desk on a number of occasions. The driver in this case had been running a private hire business for 12 years or so, and this was a two-car business: one an ordinary saloon car and one, a seven seater. In December 2009 the seven-passenger vehicle was destroyed in an arson attack at night. So the owner went out and purchased a similar replacement vehicle and took it to the garage, where it passed the tests, and the council issued a vehicle licence and a plate for full capacity. However, some six weeks later in January 2010, the council contacted the proprietor and asked him to bring this replacement vehicle in. They said that they had been informed via an anonymous phone call that the vehicle didn’t comply with the council’s private hire regulations. So he took the vehicle in and the council said, “No, it doesn’t – we’ve got new regulations. They were approved in 2005 with minor amendments in 2008.” The new conditions were, as usual – and I’m sure you all have seen it before – “the doors must open sufficiently wide enough to allow access and egress and cause no inconvenience to passengers. Access to and egress from the vehicle must at all times be available in respect of each seat without the need to move or adjust any seating.” (I might add here for those of you who don’t realise it, that these happen to be regulations for PCV buses and coaches – not private hire or hackney carriages.) Anyway, the owner said he wasn’t aware of the regulation; he’d provided all the details of the vehicle over the phone to the licensing officer at the time of purchase, and no requirement to inspect the vehicle was men- tioned at the licensing office. Well, of course the owner appealed to Committee, and out came the mid- dle seat of the middle row. Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it before. However, in March that year another vehicle went before the same Committee with the same problem. Once again the Committee determined that the exemption could be granted if the seat were removed. But the council then received legal advice that this could be taken as making an exemp-
tion “conditional”, and the Committee did not have the power to do this. So it went back to Committee and the vehicle was granted exemption. Obviously the owner of the first vehicle immediately shot back to the coun- cil saying, “’Ere, what, eh?!” At that point, as this proprietor was a member, we (the NPHA) wrote to the council explaining that it had acted on behalf of several other taxi/PHV owners in the same situation and had been successful in eight of the nine cases. The case that had been unsuc- cessful was lost prior to the publication of the Department for Transport Best Practice Guidance, which states that: “
...it may be too restrictive to automatically rule out considering Multi-Purpose Vehicles, or to license them for fewer passengers than their seating capacity.” The Ombudsman also took heed of the speech recorded by the Minister, Norman Baker, which was recorded for the National Taxi Association con- ference in October 2010: “And in this regard, you might be interested to know that I also expressed my concern to licensing authorities about local policies which require taxi owners with seven or eight seater vehicles to remove one or two of the seats. There is no real justification for this – all it does is to restrict your ability to provide the sort of service which you have identified and which you want to provide.” So what did the council do wrong? Well, the Ombudsman found that it was maladministration for the test station to have passed the vehicle as being OK without the licensing department having examined the vehicle first. If they had examined it first, they could have told the owner that it did not comply, and then he would have had the option to take the vehicle back to the dealer and substitute one that did comply. The council has said it is now reviewing its regulations and procedures to see that they reflect current legislation and guidance; and in the light of the DfT Best Practice and the Minister’s comment, and following my rec- ommendation, the council has agreed to consider a fresh application from the driver for exemption from the requirement to comply with that seat-out condition.
Oh and by the way, the driver was compensated £300 to recognise the time and trouble to which he had been put. Yes folks – isn’t it about time that we did review this stupid seat-out non- sense?! We have been in Court nine times with this; it has cost tens of thousands of pounds – what for? I’m afraid the same has to be said for the removal of tinted glass. We have got a couple of Ombudsman com- plaints going on in that direction, which we will advise you about in due course.
So until next time, sayonara.
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