Taxi Driver Online

Can't approach my beloved Gateshead Council with that one though, because Gateshead don't issue street trading licenses AT ALL.

Do you wanna know the best bit, Its because they don't want Street traders to effect the livlihoods of shop owners in the Town Centre where they have a ban on street trading.

Gateshead Council is a disgrace,

and I bet you thought I was kidding

B. Lucky

take the matter in your own hands then, ask for a meeting with external auditors, demand to know the income and expendature of taxi licensing and oppose the accounts!

your democratic right as a ratepayer, by law the auditors have to investigate and put a paragraph in notes of account maybe even surcharge.

dont tell me you can do nothing, for I know different.

but have you got the balls?

oh and by the way,
you show incredible weekness, and thats why Gareshead is like it is, you are easily steamrollered, a total pushover.

Gatehead council can do what it wants, beccause you ask for the unachievable, andd miss ans miss the basic things, your reply on justification to support your theory of licence fees was mind boggling.

the law applies to Gatehead, ringfensing? no Mick thats stupid in the extreame, quite simply they can only charge license fees to cover expendature, on licensing that bloody simple.

if you go on about ringfensing you are talking about stockpiling funds, understand what you are saying,you should not be asking for ringfensing.

What on earth are you talking about now, whats the matter with posting under your username or marking the post clearly, or do YOU not have the courage of YOUR convictions.

Let me tell you something, and if you knew me you would know this, no-one and I mean no-one would steamroller me mister.

I don't post a diary of my day to day activities on here, I only respond to people like YOU who want to steamroller others into your way of thinking.


Let me tell you something, the old association was disbanded as the Chairman recieved a vote of no confidence from the membership. I had no idea, and no way of finding out whether certain allegations made were true so decided not to reform the association but to form a branch of the T&G. I must say though, an awful lot of the allegations made have been brought back to mind when discussing issues with the council. Since the branch was formed no-one has made any complaints or allegations about our behaviour or conduct, quite the opposite in fact. As a trade unionist yourself you would understand that pleasing you is not even on my agenda, I only intend to conduct myself in the best interest of the members of my branch. BTW I don't run the branch on my own, I run it with a person who is so well respected within our union he is on various National committee's, check out who the officials are the branch number is 8/612.


I just wonder what you hope to achieve by personally insulting me time and time again Geoff, I just wonder what your motivation is, I just wonder who's arse you are licking now.


B. Lucky

That's irrelevant.

Just because the case doesn't mention HC/PH licensing, doesn't mean it's not valid in your case.

The nature of the license matters not, the fact that the cost of a license should only cover the costs associated with that license, matter a lot.

What it means is that council tax payers shouldn't really subsidies the HC/PH trade, and the PH/HC trade mustn't subsidies the council tax.

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IDFIMH

Irony doesn't come accross well at all in the written word, maybe there should be a sarcasm button.

I understand what your saying SM, thanks for that info, and I will be raising it during our meeting with cabinet which will follow the Governments response to the OFT report.

B. Lucky

Yes you are right, irony doesn't travel well on taxi/PH forums.

Nevertheless, I wish you well.

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IDFIMH

and I take it you decide whats best for the membership?

it is you that has complaints about Gateshead, you claim they are in effect putting your drivers cash in the rate fund.

you claim you have asked for ring fensing, can you explain on here what you think that means and what that involves?

for the second time Mr Angel I think I agree with you

regards

Captain cab

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

I don't DECIDE anything, members raise points of issue during our monthly meetings, as the chairman they voice their concerns to me and I ask for a majority decision from those members present.

It is my members who have a complaint about Gateshead Council, I don't claim anything other than as a trade we do not recieve best value for the fees we pay.

Our members want assurance that the fees they pay are used most effectively, they want more and better enforcement, better access to advice on licensing issues, plates and badges that are harder to reproduce, stricter vehicle testing, more road side checks by fully qualified personel, more driver training and some recognition through staffing that the trade actually exists. All we are saying is that whenever we request anything that involves the council spending money we are told there isn't any. Ensuring that a proportion of the money collected is made available for such things as listed is why we believe that an individual budget is set solely for "Taxi" licensing issues and that the money is provided from the fees they collect from our licence fee.

B. Lucky

Right,
what you describe is how the law says it should work, that is not "ringfensing"

Ringfensing is an allocation deemed to be used for a purpose and no other under a none specified time, i.e forever rolling on, it must have seperate banking facilities.

Council housing was ringfensed when they existed, government schemes are ringfensed a colomn or a budget is not ringfensed, its in a general pot but still in licensing the law is specific, a council may only levy up to its costs.

THe Taxi trade is not ringfenced though..

I remember it well; the council wanted to increase the Barrow Boys fees by over a thousand percent. It just goes to show how unreasonable and STUPID these councillors and officials can sometimes be. Most of them believe that because they are in a position of power they can do what they like with regard to administration. In most cases, they get away with it because they have the deepest pockets.

Jim Button was a solicitor at Manchester city council at the time this conflict took place. In fact, he probably would have been involved in the case at sometime. If he was involved, he and his colleagues got it completely wrong in advising the council they were in the right. One assumes the legal advice the Council got from their solicitors was that they were in the right; otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone to court. Another learning curve for Jim Button.

Best wishes

John Davies.