Andy Peters Brighton & Hove Cab Trade Association
info@bhcta.co.uk www.bhcta.co.uk
Horsham
In the April PHTM I wrote about Horsham District Council suspending a private hire operator for two weeks for breaking the triple-lock subcontracting rule. This was about a Horsham operator using a PH driver/vehicle for which it did not hold an operator licence. There was no other information on this as Horsham council decided to hide the details from the public. But why? Surely this is of public interest to know which operator of a company acted irresponsibly. The following is the FOI request I sent in:
“Under the Freedom of Information Act I am requesting the following information: on February 2nd 2026, the Horsham DC Licensing Committee suspended a licensed private hire operator for two weeks for breaking the subcontracting rules. As this is of public safety interest please provide the name of the company.”
Horsham wrote back defending its decision to withhold the name of the operator stating:
“We hold information in relation to these contracts. However, we are withholding it in accordance with the exemption at Section 43(2) of the FOI Act regarding commercial confidentiality. Section 43(2) exempts information whose disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (an individual, a company),
“We consider that the balance of the public interest lies in applying the Section 43(2) exemption and withholding the name of the private hire operator. To clarify, it is for the reasons set out above that we do not publish details of hearings or any details over and above the summary information reported to the Licensing Committee.”
I wrote back disagreeing with the decision, quoting various points such as Horsham taking part in the
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Food Standards Agency Hygiene Rating system, where a low standard level could easily be party to ‘prejudice’ or someone’s commercial interests. This is on the basis that a food business would effectively be named whether good or bad.
Additionally I quoted a well-known bus company being fined £600,000 following a conviction for a tragic health and safety breach in the Crown Court. As well as another bus operator fined almost £30,000 over faults. Both of these were named in the media. My next step is to appeal via the ICO.
Fares
Here in Brighton & Hove we have not had a fare review for over two years and currently we are 36th position in the PHTM Hackney Fares Table, whereas normally we have floated around the top 15 or so.
I have dealt with the fares for a number of years, but told everyone about four years ago that I wouldn’t be carrying on with it as it was very time consuming. I was effectively doing it by myself with many necessary protracted emails being sent back and forth between the other trade reps.
So, having not had a fare review for two years, there were rumblings that we now needed one, especially with the fuel situation being what it is. A couple of reps got together and came up with just adding 50p to the
flags and nothing on the mileage. We
currently have three flags, 6am to 9pm: £3, 9pm to midnight: £4 and midnight to 6am: £5 plus a rate of £3 per mile. However, with a proposed added 50p to the current flags this meant that only the shorter trips would increase and there would not be anything significant on the longer trips.
Whilst I am sure they were trying to do their best, and without going into the trade politics, I could not resist putting my big feet forward as I considered that hiking the flags is the best way to put people off jumping in a local cab. This is because the trade here has dramatically changed, with Uber now very well established in the city, along with the out-of-town Uber slaves out-numbering the local licensed fleet easy 4 to 1.
JUNE 2026 PHTM
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