OF DEBATE BUT NO RESOLUTIONS
are doing the testing. I did check the legality of this situation some weeks ago with a prominent taxi-wise solicitor, who advised that the tests would still be valid unless the licence holders had objected to going out- side the district for this testing - which they did not at the time. Sorry… too late, the cry.
GREATER MANCHESTER CLEAN AIR STRATEGY AND LICENSING PROPOSALS
This was an interesting topic at the 19 September Liaison forum, when we could get to it in between the rather inflammatory behaviour of some of those present. The trade believes that Bury Council is not being supportive enough in going forward with the proposed GM Clean Air initiatives, and the new licensing proposals to be imposed on the licence holders of all ten GM boroughs.
The council’s position on any modification to the Clean Air strategy by any of the ten bor- oughs, or any objection to the lack of funding for support to licence holders to acquire eco- friendly vehicles, is that “we’d be breaking the law”. How is that? Because the EU direc- tive to the UK government was to clean up the most polluted districts in the country “in the shortest possible time”; and to put in place obstructions to any of the procedures leading to that objective would be unlawful.
NPHTA COMMENT:
Translate that to mean “ker-ching”… the fact is that the government will be imposing huge fines on all those areas (currently 58 of them around the UK) that cannot get their air quality sorted PDQ. That includes Greater Manchester. But the most recent “Position Statement” from Greater Manchester issued last month made it clear that there will be a delay (for how long, we do not know) over the proposed consultation regarding “a common set of minimum standards” for all ten GM boroughs, which has been inex- orably linked with the Clean Air strategy – the funding for which was also delayed.
So the guys don’t know what is happening, one way or the other. To raise objections to a lack of defined eco-funding, or the fact that they will struggle massively to buy or lease new electric/hybrid vehicles that will enable them to avoid Clean Air Zone charges, is hardly “breaking the law”. So does the buck stop with central Government, the elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, or the ten GM boroughs? The discussion never got into detail on that point.
SECURITY ISSUES
The NPHTA got involved (re-introduced to) all the local issues last summer when invited to a Bury community centre meeting one
OCTOBER 2019
Trade members address full Council on 11 September
Sunday evening, at which there were two members of the licensing committee; James Frith MP; the police superintendent; (no members of the licensing department, inci- dentally…) and yours truly, all of whom spoke to a gathering of over 200 Bury drivers. I mainly listened, and learned that in addition to the ongoing debate about Bradley Fold, their main concern was about their own per- sonal safety.
There are repeated incidents of violent behaviour against the drivers: both physical and verbal abuse, and continual damage to their vehicles. When they contacted the police they had little or no response, so they gave up even trying to report such incidents.
NPHTA COMMENT:
It was from this meeting that the idea of our national Driver Safety Campaign was born: we designed a window sticker for all licensed vehicles, “No Excuse for Abuse”, which PHTM produced and is selling (at cost) to many councils and local associa- tions around the UK. We note that neither Bury Council nor the local associations have ordered any of these stickers, whereas Bolton Council have bought 1,800 of them and have distributed them widely amongst licence holders. Hopefully Bury will get on board…
Also I devised a “Zero Tolerance Policy” poster to put up on the wall of operator bases. We have carried the message both in PHTM and to NPHTA members, as well at the PHTM Expo: We’re proud of our trade. We’re trying to protect their wellbeing and safety.
We’re trying to spread the word also about the benefits of in-car CCTV for both driver and passenger safety; this was another of the Con- servative councillors’ motions that was put forward but watered down at full Council on 11 September, so that the motion that was ulti- mately passed made no mention of CCTV or driver safety issues at all. A fund was allocated last year by Bury police for the distribution of dashcams; we do not know if these items have been acquired or distributed, but it must
be stated that dashcams – whilst they’re cheap - are totally inferior to full in-car CCTV camera systems, for a list of reasons that are too long to elaborate on in this article.
LIAISON? WHAT A MISNOMER
As for the Taxi Liaison forum on 19 Septem- ber, this was a first for me. Frankly it put the circus that is currently going on in Westmin- ster in the shade. There were more council officers present than members of the trade – amongst whom were myself as director of the NPHTA, and Sham Raja, one of our Board members. Mr Raja had also spoken on behalf of the Bury trade from the public gallery at the full Council meeting the week before.
There was so much interrupting, cross-talk- ing and harsh words that the September 19 meeting had to be called to order on numer- ous occasions. The legal representative from the council got up and walked out very soon after the proceedings had started. There was so much argument on points that had been raised at previous meetings, that after two and a half hours we didn’t get through half the agenda.
This doesn’t accomplish anything. It is a total waste of everybody’s time. The forum in Bury on the 19th September was designed to fur- ther discuss the amended motion from full Council the week before – but the meeting didn’t get that far, not properly. What use is that to anybody?
Surely local politicians – the elected Council- lors from each ward – are there to try to resolve matters at ‘grass-roots’ level in their own district. And party politics should have no part in the issues under discussion in respect of the taxi/private hire industry in Bury. Surely the council’s duty is all about looking after the constituents, the rate pay- ers, the local tax payers, the voters in the district. And Bury’s taxi and PHV drivers fall into all those categories. But party politics clearly have muddied the waters of this set of taxi/PHV issues, big time.
The council’s suggestion to the trade, follow- ing the most recent stalemate at the forum on September 19, was to “wait and see”: to view their 82-page draft Vehicle Testing Manual on the council’s website (that caused enough of a stir in itself!) and make sugges- tions as to “what the trade wants or thinks should be included” in that manual.
The other “wait and see” hinges on the re- opening of Bradley Fold, which is supposed to happen by end-November. Trouble is, the trade in Bury maintain that they have been asked to “wait and see” far too many times over the past few years, and their patience is running out.
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