Andy Peters
Brighton & Hove Cab Trade Association
info@bhcta.co.uk www.bhcta.co.uk
Anyone who has read my ramblings before will be aware of our situation here in Brighton & Hove where we are flooded with Lewes DC (LDC) private hire drivers/vehicles from next door. This was fully encouraged by Uber when it arrived here a few years ago because it was, and still is, far easier to get an LDC private hire licence than it is to get a Brighton & Hove one based on the requirement of an extensive Knowledge Test here.
Our test is the same for driving a private hire vehicle as it is for driving a hackney carriage and so a Dual Driver Licence is issued which is what LDC currently does but has made a proposal to change this.
Lewes is a lovely ‘old town’ spread out over a wide area and mainly made up of rambling countryside. It is very far from being like the bustling city of Brighton & Hove, with a fraction of the roads meaning the knowledge test is far easier there. This is why new applicants have flocked to Lewes to gain a licence to predominantly work in Brighton & Hove rather than spend the time to ‘proudly’ gain a Brighton & Hove licence.
With so many LDC cars predominantly working here and little or no respective local enforcement, we have seen, and continue to see, widespread breaches of conditions of vehicle licensing, such as missing rear licence plates and rear-door repeater licence plates which all get reported back to LDC licensing.
We even have LDC PHVs using our taxi ranks, I kid you not.
Unbelievably, LDC is now looking to reduce the new applicant requirement for a PH driver licence because of a “… genuinely alarming…” claim about the number of drivers who have supposedly left the trade made by an LDC Licensing Committee member, who was the Licensing Chair at one point. This claim was reported in the local media and which I have used to quote.
This struck me as being very odd, so I carried out a bit of research on the government’s website for taxi and private hire numbers.
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I have taken the number of vehicles actually licensed rather than the number of drivers. This is because LDC has a mixture of stats defined as ‘PHV Only’ drivers and ‘Dual Licensed’ drivers as the council changed its system not long ago to only issue a dual licence based on the change of aligning the same requirements needed for a hackney carriage driver licence. But looking at those stats it is very difficult to see any significant drop in the number of private hire driver licences, if any.
The council has now instigated a consultation which will effectively remove the ‘Dual Licence’ and revert back to only being a private hire driver licence.
Some may think “What is the deal about this?”. However, it is a notorious fact that very few LDC private hire drivers ever have any intention of staying in Lewes, but predominantly work outside of the area and mostly in Brighton & Hove, beyond respective local licensing enforcement, much like the Wolverhampton situation.
However, of course we all know that this is absolutely legal and new drivers to the trade do not see any issue with this as the entire industry has been turned on its head and localism is now a thing of the past.
As the consultation is open to the public, I compiled a document containing the stats listed on the government website and also confirmation of licensed private hire vehicles provided by the council itself, all of which is used in good faith. This has been sent to LDC to be included in the consultation as follows:
LEWES DISTRICT COUNCIL PRIVATE HIRE & TAXI CONSULTATION – SEPTEMBER 2023
LEWES DC PH & TAXI CONSULTATION – SEP 2023
Lewes District Council is proposing to reduce the conditions for the application of licensing for private hire drivers.
“Proposal: We would introduce a Private Hire-only licence for new applicants. As a private hire driver, the applicant would not be required to complete the ‘Routes’ section of the knowledge test but would still need to complete all other aspects of the knowledge test and application.”
OCTOBER 2023 PHTM
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