Taxi Driver Online

Not the biggest increases by the looks of it, and also looks like many fees frozen.

But not the best look for a council to be increasing any fees at this time.


Cash-strapped cabbies slam council as taxi fees and charges set to rise AGAIN

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/st ... il-4916278

The proposal will be discussed at a meeting tonight


Newcastle taxi drivers Murtaza Alam, Tariq Mahmood, Shahraz Yaqub, Mark Beardmore, Sam Hashmi, Paul Wilkes, Abid Hussain and Glyn Cross. (Image: Joe Burn/Stoke Sentinel)

Cash-strapped cabbies have slammed a council - as they face being hit in the pocket with increased fees and charges.

Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council wants to increase its charges imposed on taxi drivers from April - by as much as 17 per cent.

Its proposed increases include:

Increasing the cost of the knowledge test from £25 to £27;
Increasing the charge for transferring a vehicle from £38 to £41;
Increasing the charge for changing a vehicle registration from £43 to £46.

But cabbies have reacted angrily to the council proposal.

Now it will be discussed at a meeting of the council's licensing and public protection committee tonight.

Stoke-on-Trent Private Hire Driver's Association and Newcastle Hackney Carriage Association are among those to object. It comes as cabbies have seen business plummet during the pandemic and more drivers are getting licensed by City of Wolverhampton Council where the costs are cheaper.

Stoke-on-Trent Private Hire Driver's Association chairman Shahraz Yaqub said: "When the fees and charges went up last year there was strong opposition to it. But there wasn't a full dialogue with the trade, they just went and did what they wanted to do.

"What the council does not understand is that they're not working with the trade, they're working against the trade. They're losing licensed drivers to Wolverhampton and what they don't understand is that those drivers are operating in Newcastle borough and are out of the jurisdiction of local licensing officers.

"The costs are 50 per cent cheaper in Wolverhampton compared to Newcastle. The borough council needs to give its head a wobble.

"With Wolverhampton there is less bureaucracy and red tape, so why wouldn't a driver go to Wolves?"

The council has defended the proposed increases.

A council report states: "The primary reasons for proposing an increase in the fees are that staffing costs have increased, as they do year-on-year, and the total number of licences has decreased.

"The proposed fees have been calculated to ensure that the council recovers the full cost of administering the service, while bearing in mind the legal provisions in relation to this.

"It is important to note that not all of the proposed fees are increases from 2020/21 fees. Fourteen of the fees have not been proposed to be increased."


Image: Shahraz Yaqub, chairman of Stoke-on-Trent Private Hire Drivers Association (Image: Stoke Sentinel)

Usual daft comments on the Sentinel's website from members of the public. Problem is, though, you could just as well imagine a licensing councillor thinking like this:

typical council thinking only of getting more money in to fund their pay increases

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !

Madness, utter madness.

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