ROUND THE COUNCILS
NORTH YORKSHIRE: SINGLE TAXI ZONE POSTPONED
A bid to merge seven taxi zones in North Yorkshire into one has been postponed after taxi drivers and disabled people claimed the move would be a retrograde step.
Opponents of North Yorkshire
County Council’s proposed taxi policy told a meeting of the authority’s executive it would lead to taxis clogging up town centres and sparse cover in rural areas, particularly for wheelchair users. The meeting on Tuesday 7 February, heard that a working group of elected members with significant experience of licensing had made a series of recommendations which the council’s officers had “tossed aside like a pair of old slippers” and come up with a series of different proposals. A consultation over the taxi policy showed most people were against it and, opponents claimed, the council’s leadership appeared to be reneging on a pledge to abide by its results. Nick Moxon, chairman of North Yorkshire Disability Forum, said: “The suggestion that one zone rather than seven will enable wheelchair users to find taxis on ranks in future lacks any credible evidence.” The meeting heard concerns that a dearth of wheelchair-accessible taxis in many areas of the county meant that if taxis drivers were permitted to sit on ranks miles away, wheelchair users could be left with no means of transport. Councillors were told there were no or scant wheelchair-accessible taxi services from numerous North Yorkshire stations and buses were not an acceptable alternative as wheelchair users could not safely use many rural bus stops. The meeting heard it was council policy to improve transport access for disabled people but there was nothing in the new taxi policy that would increase the number of wheelchair-accessible taxis. One Harrogate-based taxi driver told the meeting his colleagues had said if the policy was introduced they would immediately give up their wheelchair- accessible vehicles as they would not be viable. He said: “The vast majority, if not all, of the hackney carriage trade is totally against the proposals to create a one zone authority for the purpose of taxi trading as this will lead to certain livelier areas becoming swamped at peak times, leaving quieter rural areas with no supply at all, leaving residents in those areas vulnerable to getting home safely.”
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The meeting heard the proposed policy incorporates the DfT’s taxi and private hire vehicle best practice guidance and statutory standards, to ensure the public is provided with safe and accessible vehicles. Councillors heard it would also provide a coherent regulatory framework for the trade across the county and that HC and PH licence holders and taxi operators across the county would be treated equally. The authority’s executive member for open to business, Cllr Derek Bastiman, said the working group’s findings had not been tossed aside. However, the executive agreed to
postpone
considering the proposed policy in order to examine the working group’s
recommendation to allow
vehicles of up to 15 years in age to be licensed to help during the cost of living crisis.
WALSALL: SIX-MONTH DVLA CHECKS REJECTED
Taxi and PH drivers in Walsall will not have to ‘suffer’ six-monthly DVLA checks after a potential policy change was rejected. Members of Walsall Council’s licensing committee said changing the frequency of checks from the current every three years to six months would be ‘excessive’. A report to the meeting on February 22, said a ‘handful’ of the current 1,368 licensed drivers had failed to inform the licensing authority of points endorsed on their licences. This prompted the taxi licensing sub committee to request a report go to the main Licensing Committee to consider six-monthly DVLA checks. But councillors said this policy change would result in an extra burden and costs on drivers as well as putting more work on already busy officers when there were very few issues with the current system. Cllr Aftab Nawaz said: “I’m totally against this. I don’t understand why if we found one or two cases where individuals have done something wrong, the whole trade has to suffer doing six-monthly checks. They don’t do it in any other part of the country. I don’t understand why Walsall has to be an outlier and put on more costs on our struggling drivers. “If officers said the three-yearly checks are not working and we’ve got a huge problem, that may be a time to consider such things. But that’s not happened. We have to be careful we don’t keep on imposing restrictions on the trade that it becomes so lumbered by the cost of being a taxi driver in Walsall that they then go off and be a driver in Wolverhampton.”
MARCH 2023 PHTM
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