ROUND THE COUNCILS NORTHUMBERLAND:
SHAKE UP OF TAXI RULES CONSIDERED
A shake-up of rules for taxi drivers is being considered by bosses at Northumberland County Council (NCC). ChronicleLive reports that currently, hackney carriages must be based in one of six zones which make up the county and cannot tout for trade outside their designated area. But while a proposal to scrap the current situation in favour of a single patch to make regulations easier to understand, concerns have also been raised about the knock-on effect the overhaul could have. “Some parts of the trade will say it would be much better to only have a single zone for Northumberland and then they can take their trade anywhere,” said Philip Soderquest, head of housing and public protection at NCC. “Others will say they don’t want that because then others will come from one area into another, taking the trade from businesses already based there. “[A single zone] would simplify it from a customer point of view, for visitors and tourists who won’t have a clue what the zones in Northumberland are. For the trade, some might welcome it, some will probably oppose it.” Northumberland’s former ‘two tier’ system of local govern- ment, with six district councils sitting below an overarching county council, was abolished in 2009 in favour of the current system of a single unitary authority. But the system has lived on in rules for hackney carriages, which are still required to register to a ‘licensing zone’, dictating where they can be hailed or pick up customers from ranks. Despite this, a single fare structure is applied across the county. Bosses at the county council are now preparing to launch a consultation on possible changes to licensing rules, which could see the existing set-up retained, or a single zone created for the whole of Northumberland. The creation of separate urban and rural zones has also been considered, although this is not thought feasible by legal experts. Whatever happens, licensing chiefs will hope to avoid a repeat of what happened in County Durham after its shake-up of rules. “[Durham County Council] created a single Hackney Car- riage zone that created huge problems,” Mr Soderquest told Northumberland County Council’s Licensing and Regulatory Committee. “The term used for Chester-le-Street and Durham City was ‘honeypot’, because basically what happened was a lot of the taxis from the smaller districts moved into Durham City or Chester-le-Street, where there was more business for them.
“It ended up with Durham County Council putting in additional parking for taxis, where they could stack them up.
OCTOBER 2021
“It probably created a lot of problems for the local trade that was originally in Durham City and Chester-le-Street, because they were claiming they were losing business. “But for the customer, they were probably thinking it was great, because more taxis meant there’s always a taxi there for me.”
WAKEFIELD: RECORDING ADDRESSES PLANS DROPPED
Plans to ask taxi firms in Wakefield to record passengers’ addresses, even if they weren’t going to or from their homes, have been dropped. The Wakefield Express reports that licensing chiefs at Wakefield Council had considered introducing the measure in the interests of safeguarding. But taxi firms were sceptical of the idea, with representa- tives suggesting they were powerless to stop passengers calling themselves “Donald Duck” and giving a false address. The proposal has now been left out of an updated taxi policy, which the council approved at a committee meeting on Wednesday 8 September. Chief licensing officer Chris Burnett said: “There was quite a lot of discussion about this at the last meeting. “The argument put forward by the operators, was that if they were simply taking someone from one nightclub to another nightclub, why would they need his home address? “The idea was about having sufficient information to track down that person afterwards if we needed to. “The decision now is that a name and a contact number will be sufficient.” The council has also agreed to temporarily suspend its rules around vehicle emissions, in a bid to help hard-hit drivers. Under the rules, many cabbies would have had to fork out for a new car this year, if their current vehicle had reached ten years of age. But in recognition of the financial impact of the Covid pandemic, the committee unanimously approved a one year extension for those affected. The council’s new taxi policy takes effect from Thursday 9 September, with several alterations from the previous one, following a consultation with drivers themselves. These include rules around DBS checks for office staff, and annual medical checks for cabbies over the age of 65. Mr Burnett said that as a result of the short notice, a number of drivers would technically be in breach of the new rules instantly, but that the council would not immediately punish them for it. He said: “We’re taking a pragmatic approach. “We’ll be informing the operators of the changes and working with them over the next few weeks. “If we get to five or six months down the line and the operators are still not complying, then we will be looking to enforce it.”
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