up north cabbie wrote:
we currently have 83 hc's 123phv's largest company 53 cars mainly hc doinly mainly ph work . largest ph firm 26 cars used to be hack until sold them all to become phv . average plate £3000/£4000 . age limit 5 year with 6th extension if perfect. minium 14'6'' length hc's white phv;s any other.
You see what I mean then, your council has a 5 year age policy, meaning a brand new WAV were your council to deregulate. Therefore the cost of becoming a HC would be in excess of £20k, with further investment of similar ammounts every 5 years.
The current HC plate values are low, less than 10% of what Sussex clan quote, which generally means not much more will be gained through having the HC plate over having a PH plate.
If Easington were to delimit it would be fair to say they would insist on WAVs, becuase of other restrictions take up would be low for new plates, as there just doesn't seem to be the HC work, far better drive a better car, a car of your choice, in the obviously more profitable market of PH. The £4000 for a plate would be worth spending if you could make a decent living as an independant HC driver as it would save you on office fees, but the office fees you pay would have to be substancial if you were to save on the extra cost of a WAV. More and more councils are adopting similar age restrictions, therefore the trade in value for a 5 year old WAV will be little more than scrap.
Of course you could just jump into the HC trade with both feet, as the council and Sussx would have you do, on the understanding that its better for them for more councils to adopt the same policies, however maybe by thinking about it you may see that what some people are trying to tell you is delimitation doesn't work well for every driver in every area.