Taxi Driver Online

Well this is interesting

Takes a while to get to the nitty gritty as regards what actually happened in licensing terms, and not sure the article really explains it fully. But I'd guess he let the plates expire during lockdown, and wanted to renew them some time later when activity picked up again. Which, of course, wouldn't be so much of a problem in many areas, but the issue in Liverpool was that the plates are quotaed, so he couldn't just reapply for plates.

Anyway, the council obviously wouldn't play ball, thus the expired plates were treated as, er, expired


'I had my day in court': Taxi boss says city has hundreds more cabs than drivers

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/li ... m-28860575

Richard Gawith said he felt "wronged" by the council's decision not to allow him to retain expired taxi licences - but a High Court judge did not agree


Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo

The boss of a Liverpool black cab company has taken his fight with the city council to the High Court.

Richard Gawith runs George Gawith (Taxis) Ltd, based in Kensington. The firm was launched by his dad in the 1960s and offers drivers the chance to rent and drive Hackney Cabs, as well as selling taxi parts.

Richard, 51, from Wirral, took over the company in 2002 when his dad stepped back. Like so many businesses, the Covid-19 pandemic caused major problems for the company - with many drivers leaving the profession through a lack of work and other opportunities.

Richard said: "The pandemic was certainly a low point. Lots of drivers left and the trade has struggled to recover. We estimate that there are now between 800 and 900 drivers (of black cabs in the city), but there are 1,426 black cabs."

Hackney Cabs are licensed to the local authority area they are based in. Richard said paying for these licences to be renewed while so many of his cabs were off the road after the pandemic was too difficult, so he asked the city council for a reprieve.

In 2021 he was again asked to renew his cab licences and said he would as and when he could. He said: "I knew as time went on I was pushing my luck a bit, but the council had given me some leeway before. Then they started insisting on renewing the licences."

By 2023, relations between the council and Richard had hardened and the local authority decided to take 21 of the cab licences off his firm. He calculated this as a loss of £210,000 to the company, with each licence valued at around £10,000.

After some discussions and reasoning, the council returned all but six of the licences to Richard and his company. But he wasn't satisfied with this and wanted those six back as well. When communications with the council dried up, he decided he wanted his day in court.

He said: "I wanted to try for a judicial review against the decision. That got thrown out but I had a right to appeal. So I did and I had my day in court."

At the High Court in Manchester earlier this week, Richard and his company argued that the decision to take the expired licences from them made no sense as it meant there would be fewer cabs on the road. He also felt the council was discriminating by letting some other cab drivers keep their expired licences.

But the High Court judgement, seen by the ECHO, said these were not valid and dismissed Mr Gawith's appeal for a judicial review.

The judgement reads: "There is no entitlement to hold on to a slot for future renewal of an expired licence, retaining the plate referable to the expired licence. The Local Authority was entitled, beyond argument, acting lawfully and reasonably, to take a principled firm line."

"The Local Authority has plainly considered the points consistently put forward by the Claimant throughout the entire sequence of events. But it has also consistently explained why driver shortage and affordability do not provide a basis for expired licences to “sit unrenewed” on an ongoing basis, that it was necessary and appropriate to regularise the position, and that fair time had been allowed."

Richard said he knew it was likely that his appeal would be turned down in the High Court - and it was - but he said he wanted to raise the issue to warn other companies of the situation.

He said: "I felt I had been wronged. The council did have the right to do this (recall the licences), but they didn't have to do it. It was good to get an explanation from a judge - for my sanity at least."

He says he hopes other Hackney Licence owners should be aware of the council's approach to expired licences and has urged anyone with questions to contact him on email@gawiths.co.uk.

Photo:
https://i2-prod.liverpoolecho.co.uk/inc ... l-City.jpg
Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo

Makes it sound like that those are the current numbers. Can't believe that, or at least that's surely unsustainable on a long-term basis.

Anyway, would be interesting to know what happened to the expired plates - was the intention that the council would reissue them, assuming anyone wanted one? Or would they just have the lower number of total plates 'going forward' (annoying political cliche alert ).

But the numbers suggest that no-one would want them from the council anyway. By the same token, saying that the plates were worth £10k each isn't really consistent with the vehicle/driver numbers quoted above. They would surely be worthless? I suspect the figures cited are historical rather than current.

Anyway, reminds me of what happened when my last vehicle came up against the council's age-rule, and I was waiting on delivery of a new one

So I was without a car for a few weeks, and thus the plate was effectively dormant. The council told me that the plate would be revoked if I didn't get another vehicle for it within one month

Therefore a bit like the scenario in Liverpool above.

Except that, unlike the scenario in Liverpool, my plate had never actually expired - it just didn't have a vehicle attached (rather than the usual scenario of attaching a plate to the vehicle )

But luckily my new motor arrived in time.

Or maybe it was unlucky - who knows, my life might have taken a turn for the better if the council had forced my hand and I got out of the trade

About 50 comments on the Echo's website. Most of the predictably go off on a bit of a tangent about stuff like overcharging and Uber etc, but one or two interesting ones:

How many plates does one person need FFS?

I would hope the council will offer those plates to drivers, but given this multi plate owner couldn’t find or fund any suitable WAVs it does beg the question as to whether individual drivers can.

Think new entrants to the trade want to work Uber, not have to pay rent to the likes of multi plate man.

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IDFIMH

I assumed he still had the vehicles, but let the plates expire during lockdown, with the intention of renewing the plates when things recovered, rather than not being able to find or fund vehicles, or whatever.

But the article is inconclusive as regards whether he still had the vehicles or not, as far as I can see

I suspect the vehicles ran out age, so to speak.

Or they were no longer mechanically sound.

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IDFIMH

A quick google reveals that he runs an MOT testing station with a second business renting out black cabs plus he sells number plates and taxi plates plus taxi parts

Which suggests that during covid it wasn't worth maintaining the licenses but now things are picking up he wanted to renew them as they were worth quite a few quid. Looks like he still has a few but the ones that expired probably cost money to buy originally.

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

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