84 PRIVATE HIRE AND TAXI MONTHLY
JANUARY 2009
CHAOS AT TRADE SUMMIT: BIRMINGHAM GETS IT WRONG!
atmosphere. The driv- ers were very aggressive; they were approaching the stage, officers and council- lors... I felt it could have turned violent at any minute. It was a relief when it was called off. We couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
Depending on which report you read in the local papers, “thou- sands” of licence holders converged on the Aston Villa club facility the Holte Suite on the 25th November to attend a consultation meeting hosted by Birmingham City Coun- cil.
The objective was for the council to gain fur- ther opinions and views from the trade on the issues of a proposed colour livery for private hire vehicles, increased MoT testing to twice during the year, and an age restriction on Pri- vate Hire. However, things got a bit out of hand - to say the least. Apparently the meeting was sup- posed to commence at 7.00pm that evening, but the police stated that at quarter to seven the door supervisor(s) should limit numbers to 800, and at ten to seven the doors to the meet- ing room were closed as that number had been reached.
This resulted in some 800 licence holders having been allowed into the meeting room, and - according to the council - at least anoth-
er 800-1,000 were barred from entry and had to wait outside. The original plan of the council, having seen the huge numbers of attendants who had turned up, was to hold two meetings, one after another; but on seeing the size of the crowd, the police declared that the second meeting was unadvisable because of potential public disorder con- cerns. Trade members who attended were furious, both about the han- dling of the situation and the issues at stake. Manager of the local private hire association Shakeel Asghar stated that “the meeting was not able to accommo- date even half of the expectant trade mem- bers, drivers [who were excluded] were given false and inaccurate
information...The meet- ing was stopped with no warning and no real resolution; no explana- tion was given as to why the meeting had come to a sudden end. “Drivers are outraged and are not only requesting written apologies but also threatening to claim for
loss of income.” Transport and General Workers’ Union repre- sentative Waseem Zaffer said: “It was a total and utter farce. We told them in an email to expect 2,000 to 3,000 people. If you invite ten people to your house you make sure you have ten seats.”
DEFENDED
But Cllr Bruce Lines (Con, Bartley Green), vice chairman of the licensing committee, who was in charge of the meeting, defended its organisation. He told the Birmingham Mail: “It was unprecedented; we did not expect that many drivers to turn up... We did not call off the meeting, the police did.” Police said that there were no reported offences and no arrests.
Again there were con- flicting reports: an official from the city’s licensing department - who asked not to be named - claimed that some of the 800 drivers who attended the meeting at the Holte Suite were aggressive, rowdy and threatening. “Inside the Holte Suite there was a frightening
A subsequent report in the Birmingham Mail confirmed that each of Birmingham’s 5,000 private hire drivers will receive a letter - they may have already received this by the time our January edi- tion of PHTM comes out - apologising for the chaos which caused the second consulta- tion meeting to be cancelled.
In the same letter the council is promising further meetings in the
ham’s head of licens- ing Peter Barrow concerning the events of the November meet- ing, and the background leading up to it. Mr Barrow openly acknowledges that the Holte Suite was an inappropriate venue for the numbers of licence holders who turned up. However, Mr Barrow said that the arrange- ment had been made based on previous consultations and the low number of replies. He told us: “Because we received only 11 responses back from the SRA survey (and this was well before the credit crunch had set in), and there were 125 drivers at the Septem- ber committee, therefore we thought the Holte Suite would be adequate for this
running on these issues, from the returned question- naires so far, 94 per cent do not want a sin- gle-colour livery for private hire vehicles. Between the age restriction, colour liv- ery,
testing and
signage, there’s a lot at stake; hopefully ulti- mately democracy will work.”
PROMISE
Indeed, Birmingham’s licensing chief has vowed to consider the views of every private hire driver in drawing up the new industry guidelines. Chair of the licensing committee Cllr David Osborne faced a barrage of questions from fellow councillors following the Holte Suite deba- cle. But he slammed a
New Year to discuss the range of measures which has caused such a high degree of con- cern amongst licence holders, especially PHV drivers. According to the council’s chief executive Stephen Hughes, fresh meet- ings will now be organised to give Birm- ingham’s licence holders the chance to have their say.
If PHTM readers will recall, part of the con- troversy - in addition to the list of stringent new proposals - involved the £24,000 survey conducted by private consultants SRA, which was sent out to hack- ney licence holders and some private hire; that was discussed at the September licens- ing committee, where trade members first made known their dis- gust with the whole proceedings.
The NPHA had a long chat with Birming-
next meeting. By the time we received the warning email about possible larger num- bers of attendants at the November meeting, it was too late to cancel the venue.
“There’s no question about it - we were over- whelmed with the response at the Holte Suite. We have also been very surprised at the numbers of ques- tionnaires that have been returned by trade members; they’ve sent in over 1,500 replies so far, and they’re still coming in. “We’re intending to pass the comments from the questionnaires back to the hackney carriage and private hire working group, and the entire set of issues will head the agenda of the February Licensing Committee. All replies will be seen and considered. “To give an indication of how strong feelings are
majority of the city’s 100 firms who failed to take part in consulta- tion at an earlier stage, thus leading officials to believe that one or two sessions at the Holte Suite would have been adequate.
Cllr Osborne (Lib Dem, Acocks Green) told the Birmingham Post: “We invited all the operators in Birmingham - there are about 100 - to a meeting and provided enough room for all of them. About 20 turned up.” Regarding the SRA survey, he said, “We now realise they should have written direct to the drivers.”
The chairman repeated an apology which has now been sent to all drivers, and said that full consultation would continue. “We know the issues, but we do not have the solutions. We will talk to everyone involved, whether it takes six weeks, six months or longer.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136
