Andy Peters Brighton & Hove Cab Trade Association
info@bhcta.co.uk www.bhcta.co.uk
Fare Review
Following on from last month’s ramblings where I reported on the trade’s fare review, which we voted on in May, and we were expecting to go to the licensing committee, as it has always done, in June, where it didn’t and instead went to the full cabinet on September 17. To date at the time of writing in late October, this has still not been advertised over a month later as per Section 65 of the LGMP Act 1976. In fact my emails to Cllr Trevor Muten (Transportation) and Licensing have effectively been blanked. This of course is unacceptable for the trade here in Brighton & Hove. As a ‘fit and proper’ person’ I will refrain from putting in black and white what exactly I want to state about this. So, swiftly moving on…
Licensing Committee Meeting
I sat through the live streaming of the 8th October Licensing Committee where there was only the briefest mention of the previously quoted fare review which has still yet to be instigated.
I used to attend these meetings in the council chamber as there was seating directly nearby for public viewing. However, the council stopped this and anyone who now wants to attend the meetings has to sit upstairs in the ‘Gods’. The issue of this is that there has to be a security guard there to make sure that you don’t throw rotten tomatoes at the councillors, or similar. This meant that as I have been the only one from the trade to go to watch these meetings, I would have my own assigned security guard hovering around to keep an eye on me.
Anyway, as usual I was huffing and puffing at the laptop screen when I was hearing certain comments being made by certain councillors on specific subjects. It is just as well that I no longer attend these meetings as I think I would have been man-handled out and probably banned. I will be addressing what was stated at that meeting in due course. But, when you hear a councillor praise the Uber app and how convenient it is and effectively making a statement that local companies need to ‘Up their game’, although not quite
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in those words but certainly inferring that, you can imagine that I was practically leaping through the laptop screen with disbelief and great anger!
As a Streamline Taxis Association full member, I can state that we have invested hundreds of thousands over the years in technology, from being the first here to have radios, to auto-dispatch and going through continuous variations of in-car data-heads to now the equivalent Uber style driver/customer app. And yet we have a councillor who does not know anything about us, even though this year we celebrate 90 years of being a non-profit making owner-driver association. So, to that councillor, please do your research before you make unwarranted statements. You should also consider that local companies are not backed by billions of dollars and that those billions of dollars of profits from Uber here is sent overseas and the drivers are now being hit with up to 49% commission on the fares that you pay.
The biggest issue I have with local councillors, many of whom I have seen come and go over the forty-years of being in the trade, is that whilst they have the gift under legislation to control the local taxi and private hire trade (whilst having no control whatsoever on the OOTs), they make little or no effort to do their proper factually constructed research. That specific councillor, who has a say in the control of the local trade here, is typical of many who have come and gone who can actually cause damage to us. I do have to make the point though that I have worked on a one-to-one basis with several local councillors over the years who have actually gone out of their way to show an interest in our local trade rather than just sit at meetings making unwarranted statements. So, to all local councillors throughout the country I say to you: just because you have been given the power under legislation to ‘control’ us, do not think you can just make non-factual throwaway comments that affect the livelihood of hundreds of drivers without being challenged.
One other point that was spoken about at that meeting was the dwindling number of local driver/vehicle licences compared to over the last few years. It was effectively stated that this will be ‘looked into’ as to what the cause is and as to whether this is the same in other areas. This was another time where I could have leapt through the laptop screen and into the council chamber shouting: “Why don’t you already know this?” because the facts are already
NOVEMBER 2026 PHTM
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