Taxi Driver Online

Harsh, but fair, I suppose - no point having an age rule if individuals can just cite individual circumstances for not adhering to the age rule - where would it end?


High Court judge backs Hertfordshire's council’s refusal of taxi licence renewals

https://www.essexlive.news/news/local-n ... es-9840900

Six taxi drivers said the Covid-19 pandemic meant they should have received extensions to their licenses

A High Court judge has backed Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council’s refusal to renew the licenses of six taxi drivers during the Covid-19 pandemic. The drivers, whose renewal applications were rejected because their vehicles were more than eight years old, argued that the council should have made an exception to its policy because of the pandemic.

Their appeal against the council’s decision had been upheld by a district judge, leading the council to launch its own appeal at the High Court. The judge there, Mr Justice Linden, backed the council’s original decision, saying that the pandemic was not “in and of itself … capable of justifying an exception” to the rules.

He said a decision should have been made based on the “impact” of the pandemic on each driver rather than as a general ruling. Mr Justice Linden added that the original hearing should have been conducted based on whether the licenses should be extended at the time of the appeal in 2022 rather than considering whether they should have been extended at the time of the original decision to refuse them.

Originally, the district judge had said there were exceptional circumstances, which meant the council should have issued a one-year extension to the taxi drivers - who were able to continue driving their taxis pending their appeal. During the original court case, the drivers said they “could not afford” to replace their taxis at the time because “trade was very slow” and “there was no demand for taxis”. One said his income had fallen from £16,000 to £9,000.

But Mr Justice Linden suggested that the district judge’s ruling could logically mean that “anyone who was able to show that they could not afford a new vehicle could argue for an exception” and warned this could “risk inconsistent decision making and thereby undermine the policy of the council.”

He said there would have been a “fairness” issue with extending the licenses, given other drivers had spent money to go along with the council’s rules. A spokesperson for Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council said: “We are pleased with the High Court judgment which provides clarity on the application of the council’s policy on renewing taxi licenses.”

They added that the council is hoping to recover its legal costs from the respondents, who were the taxi drivers and West and Central Hertfordshire Magistrates Court.

I suppose it's all academic now as clearly any age-related issue is no longer an issue for those drivers who were refused.

The biggest ****s in all of this isn't the High Court judge above, but the council and its councillors who refused the extension, when basically we all thought the world was going to end, and many in the trade didn't know how on earth they were ever going to pay their bills again.

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IDFIMH

I kind of agree, Sussex, and if dispensations were offered across the board then that would be fine.

But, as per the article, one point is that most of the other drivers were adhering to the rule.

To that extent, it would be unfair if others were allowed to ignore it. And take that argument to its logical conclusion, and we'd be assessing stuff like that all the time...

But it all depends precisely what happened, I suppose, and all the other circumstances, but there's not much information in the piece.

But, in general terms, I'm inclined to agree with the judge here...

I seem to remember having this age-rule argument with Shepway DC many years ago based on the the face there had already been a number of similar cases. Basically relicencing should be based on the condition of the vehicle rather than a rbitary age. when I took the case to dover Magistrates the LO dropped the case base on previous rulings.

I suspect this case could have been won had they searched for previous cases such as mine. It really is time we had a national set of standards.

Government best practice guidance is that there should not be arbitory age limits and it should be on emmisions.

Yes, there are other things the drivers could have argued, and I think there's a bit of case law on the age rules specifically, but can't recall them offhand...

But maybe the cars were sheds, and 'rolling coal' types with half a million miles on the clock, so they didn't think arguing that an age rule was arbitrary would get them very far

But, I mean, imagine watching this for 22 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jSkRIEjC_o

But, aye, this is me on the rank most nights

(No, I didn't watch the video all the way...just a quick random check to see if it was the same all the way through... )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jSkRIEjC_o&t=773s

It appears that this judgment is much more significant than any of us thought at the time.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ad ... /3356.html

This is a note from a senior legal advisor to the courts.

Appeal against local authority decision: Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council v West and Central Hertfordshire Magistrates Court and others

A company appealed against the council’s decision not to renew their taxi licence because their vehicles didn’t satisfy the council’s standard conditions, which required taxis to be less than eight years old . The district judge decided the case by asking herself whether the decision of the local authority “was wrong”, and in that context, “what would I have done”? She decided that the Covid 19 pandemic meant that the council should have departed from their Standard Conditions and renewed the licence for a year, thus the decision of the council was wrong, and the appeal was allowed. The council appealed.

The Administrative Court held that, when determining an appeal against a local authority decision, the magistrates’ court should not ask whether the original decision was “wrong” but should rehear the applications de novo and make its own decision.

So now an appeal is a complete re-hearing of a case, and new evidence can be produced.

Also, where in the past decisions were made as to whether the council's decision was wrong, that no longer applies.

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IDFIMH

One thing that has surprised me is that the DfT Best Practise was never put before the mags court or the appeal court.

In my view had it been it would have helped the mags court defend their position at the appeal's court.

Just to recap, this is what the DfT currently say re Age Limits.

8.4  Vehicle age limits

The frequency of testing required (see frequency of vehicle tests) to ensure the ongoing safety of vehicles is a separate issue to the setting of maximum age limits at first licensing, or maximum age limits beyond which an authority will not licence a vehicle.

The setting of an arbitrary age limit may be inappropriate, counterproductive and result in higher costs to the trade and ultimately passengers. For example, a maximum age for first licensing may have adverse unintended consequences. A 5-year-old used electric vehicle will produce less emissions than a new Euro 6 diesel or petrol car – enabling the trade to make use of previously owned vehicles will assist it to transition more rapidly to zero emission vehicles and improve air quality.

Licensing authorities should not impose age limits for the licensing of vehicles instead they should consider more targeted requirements to meet their policy objectives on emissions, safety rating and increasing wheelchair accessible provision where this is low.

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IDFIMH