OUT OF TOWN DRIVERS STATE FOR TRANSPORT SEEKING TAXI REFORM
YPHA EXECUTIVE MEMBERS COMMENT:
(Chair Wendy Loveday, Vice Chair Richard Newby, Secretary Neil Rowley, Treasurer Rebecca Boldry, 14 Executive Members)
“It’s great to see that York Council Licensing Committee are trying to help rid our city of out of area drivers, but to have backed the Police with their legal opinion on section 46 of the LGMPA, 1976, which asserts that Uber (amongst others) ARE breaking the law by sitting around in York without a prebooked job, would, of course, have been more useful.
have joint authorisation of enforcement powers. However, even after years of work, there is a long way to go before we are fully aligned.
Problems have been exacerbated further in the last 36-48 months as one local private hire operator has been granted an operator’s licence by Wolverhampton Council. They have and continue to encourage their potential new recruit drivers, who cannot pass the safeguarding and knowledge test at York, to get licensed by Wolverhampton (the approved door signage and tele- phone number for their vehicles is exactly the same as the door signage and telephone number used by York licensed vehicles). It would appear that the operator and drivers have no intention of working in Wolverhampton, they only intend to work in York.
Outdated legislation allows customers using this operator to believe the driver and vehicle are licensed by York. This is fundamentally undermining local controls and poses significant cost to the local taxpayer with increased enforcement, as you will know, local authorities cannot recover the cost of enforcement against out of town drivers from their taxi licensing account.
In order to make sure that residents and visitors are safe when travelling in licensed vehicles in York, and also ensure the safety of other road users, we urge you to make taxi reform a key priority moving forward and update outdated legislation. Clear reform should allow licensing authority to have full control over their authority areas.
Yours faithfully
Cllr Keith Orrell, Cllr Rachel Melly Chair Vice Chair Licensing & Regulatory Committee Cc: Rt Hon George Eustice MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Rachaell Maskell MP, Julian Sturdy MP
OCTOBER 2021
“The Taxi and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill is still only in the very first stages, and it barely touches the real issues that out of town drivers touting for work outside their licensed areas create.
“The only upside, and frankly quite entertaining fact is that once this Bill becomes law, the drivers who are sitting outside of their areas “making provision for the invitation or acceptance of a private hire booking” will now be controlled by both areas’ council enforcement teams.
“And, Wolverhampton Council, which is by far the worst of them all, will be forced to control their drivers AND share information with the many other licensing areas where their drivers work, including informing other councils of any action that they’ve taken against their drivers. So in essence these out of area drivers will be controlled by at least two licensing authorities.”
NPHTA COMMENT: The reality of this situation is quite clear, where it is claimed to be “difficult to enforce”, it is actually extremely easy - when entering a boundary outside of that where the vehicle is licensed, in this case e.g. a Leeds licensed vehicle entering the boundary of York, a few simple checks would verify whether or not that vehicle has a legiti- mate cause to do so: • Is there a passenger on board? • Is there a pre-booked journey on the drivers PDA or app?
If the answer to both of those questions is no, then the driver has no legitimate reason to be leaving their licensed district.
Unless of course the driver was completely off duty, in which case it would be reasonable to expect them to park up and exit the vehicle on arrival, as opposed to sitting around waiting to jump to action.
Geo fenced boundaries really do need to be introduced into these apps, or the local authorities need to start enforcing their own policies and the LGMPA!
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