Taxi Driver Online

A new company Medway Norse has taken over the facilities management in Medway. Who the hell are they I hear you ask? Medway Norse is a similar incarnation to the notorious Kent Top Travel.

It is a subsidiary of Norfolk county Council, an in-house supplier of council services; Medway Norse is jointly owned by Norfolk and Medway.

Why post here you then ask? Because Medway tendered its Special Educational Needs contracts recently then did not award ANY! Instead they used a little-known EU case to award them without going through the tendering process to Medway Norse. So far there's been no application for a psv operators licence, a process which takes at least 9 weeks, and no applications for private hire operators licences. The result is that a number of taxi and ph operators, as well as PSV operators are about to lose a sizeable chunk of their business to another council-run body!

It may be they apply for s19 permits to run their minibuses, but hey, s19 are only awarded to "not for profit" operations. Medway Norse share their profits between the 2 councils...they also advertise for a transport manager at an annual salary of £35k. That process is likely to take a couple of months, so in effect they may be starting an illegal psv operation with no TM and no O licences!

This may only be the tip of the iceberg with this particular operation. Mainstream schools tenders are next in their line of sight.

MN have already taken over services such as toilet and street cleaning, gardening, libraries etc.

Well if it only takes 9 weeks to get the licence they've got plenty of time before the next school year

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

No, the new "contract" starts in April so NOT enough time!