ROUND THE COUNCILS CAMBRIDGE:
LEEDS: CABBIES STRUGGLING AS FEES RISE
Licensing fees in Cambridge will go up this year, despite calls from drivers to freeze them, and they have also lost their bid to change vehicle livery rules. Taxi drivers had highlighted the costs they are already facing to comply with a raft of other policy requirements from Cambridge City Council. A petition signed by 104 HC drivers opposed the rise. The authority said it had reduced the original planned increase after a consultation with drivers, and said the service would be operating at a loss. The cost of a new driver’s licence will now rise from £250 to £270, and a one-year renewal will increase from £84 to £100. A report presented to a licensing committee on 30 January, said it had to “seek to recover”
the
administration costs associated with licences. But one driver said the committee could see from the petition that the drivers were “struggling” and predicted some drivers would leave and take up PH roles instead, which could lead to a shortage of WAVs. He said: “We have to buy EVs which must be silver. Now we have to get CCTV with no funding for it. I request you freeze the prices. You say you’re on our side, but here again is another rise.” Yvonne O’Donnell, environmental health manager, said they had changed the proposals to “support” the trade, without a “major impact” on the council’s finances. She said there was a deficit of £100,000 after not raising the fees for the last few years. The majority of the committee voted in favour of the increase, which comes into effect from April 1. Meanwhile, taxi drivers’ calls for the council to change its policy requiring HCs to be silver with a green stripe were rejected. Drivers said it was difficult for them to buy EVs in silver and without tinted windows as required by the authority. A petition signed by 101 hackney drivers called for the policy to be scrapped. Ahmed Karaahmed, chairman of Cambridge City Licensed Taxis, said the livery policy increased costs for drivers and warned of them “giving up the trade”, becoming private hire drivers, or seeking a licence from South Cambridgeshire DC and then driving diesel cars in the city. Council officers explained that the livery policy was implemented in 2019, after a review was requested in 2017 by taxi drivers to enable hackneys to be distinguished from PHVs. Councillors voted to retain the livery policy.
PHTM MARCH 2023 PH DRIVERS FAIL TO SPOT CSE IN TESTS
Private hire drivers in Leeds failed to spot signs of CSE, the council has revealed after conducting tests where undercover police officers and volunteer cadets played the roles of older men and young teenage girls to see how cabbies would react to ‘red flag’ behaviour. Child Safeguarding officers, police, police cadet volunteers and staff from Leeds City Council Taxi and Private Hire Licensing ran a ‘test purchase’ targeting hotels and PHVs in outer north-west Leeds. The initiative on Saturday night, 28 January, identified examples of good practice where deliberate suspicious behaviour was immediately reported to the police, but also other examples where training is needed. Officers and cadet volunteers played the role of older men and young teenage girls and working to a script, the teams engaged in ‘red flag’ behaviour while trying to book hotel rooms or while on private hire journeys. This included overt conversations about having condoms, lying about being over 18, agreeing not to tell parents where they were, reminding them about gifts bought and referring to buying alcohol. Other suspicious behaviour including asking to pay for rooms in cash or without identification and discussing being turned away from other hotels. Over the course of the evening, they visited four local hotels and took four PHV journeys in between. Staff at two of the hotels called police with suspicions, and the teams were refused rooms at the other two hotels, but their concerns were not reported. Staff were debriefed by officers on the night. The private hire drivers involved were later subject to ‘routine’ checks by uniformed police officers and licensing staff, but none raised concerns when asked about their passengers on the night. Follow-up work is now being carried out around further training to bolster CSE awareness activity in the hotel and PH trade following the operation. Det Superintendent Lee Berry, Head of Crime & Safeguarding for Leeds District, said: “This operation was not about catching people out but identifying where the risks are and raising awareness so we can work to prevent and disrupt this type of offending. “We are increasing our awareness training to focus on those areas highlighted during the operation where more could have been done. We will be carrying out similar operations in future to improve awareness and protect young people from exploitation and abuse.”
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