Taxi Driver Online

Fascinating analysis in Taxi Point about the amount of PH operator licenses in both the Castle Point and Hertsmere council areas - 554 and 467 respectively in each authority area which comprise only small and mid-sized towns - Hertsmere has only ONE HC licence in issue

Just had a quick skim read of the piece last night, and can't dispute the stuff about Wolverhampton etc, and the fact that Castle Point and Hertsmere have more operator's licences in issue than the likes of Leeds, Liverpool and Birmingham.

And, outside London, only Wolverhampton is in the same ball park, and the reasons for that are well documented.

On the other hand, on one level the piece seems to miss the point a bit, suggesting that as well as licence shopping for badges and plates, that's also now going on with operator's licences.

Well, duh - of course it is; the whole Wolverhampton, Knowsley and Sefton thing wouldn't work unless businesses were also licence shopping for operator's licences, because that's required for the whole thing to work because of the triple-lock requirement

On the other hand, maybe the, er, point Taxi Point is making is that the Castle Point and Hertsmere thing is particularly about operators licences rather than badges and plates per se.

But which begs the question re the rationale for what's going on there, and which Taxi Point doesn't know the answer to...

But, most obviously, although there are similar ops licence numbers in the two boroughs as compared to Wolverhampton, in the latter there are roughly 70 or so vehicles on average to each op. While in Castle Point and Hertsmere there are more like two vehicles per each operator.

And which is no doubt partly explained because of the small town and rural environment - lots of one man bands and very small scale operators.

But there's obviously something else going on - anyone got any ideas?

I'm wondering about school run stuff and those big providers, and why maybe individual drivers might need to have their own op's licences.

On the other hand, wasn't the huge number of PH vehicle licences in Uttlesford because of that?

But that's a different scenario - big operators with huge amounts of plates, as opposed to what's going on in Castle Point and Hertsmere - huge numbers of operators, but a tiny number of plates per operator



The private hire map that raises new CROSS BORDER questions: Why are hundreds of operators licensing with smaller councils?

https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/the-p ... stering-wi

London remains England’s largest private hire vehicle operator licensing authority, but new figures reveal that several comparatively small councils are issuing hundreds of operator licences, prompting questions over whether the industry’s well-documented debate around “licence shopping” by drivers should also extend to private hire operators.

And interesting stuff on the Hertsmere Council website about the apparent need for premises for an operator's licence.

Which, of course, might not mean very much if multiple operators are using the same premises simply as an accommodation address, or similar

And, apropos of how it's done via Wolverhampton etc, check out the final paragraph about "small operators" being "permitted to use virtual offices". And, unlike in Wolverhampton, the figures certainly demonstrate that the vast majority of operators using Hertsmere for licensing are certain to be *small*.


https://www.hertsmere.gov.uk/business/l ... or-licence

I thought it might be a basket case council that required PH driver/owners to also be operators, but reading their terms and conditions, that's not the case.

In fact, from the brief look I had, their terms and conditions are quite strict, although they are experiencing a high level of driver applications.

All very strange; maybe, just maybe, the DfT read their numbers wrong when the council submitted them.

_________________
IDFIMH

Wondered if it was maybe some kind of booking operation or school run provider requiring individual drivers/proprietors to get an operator's licence, which would mean that the umbrella operation itself wouldn't need a licence?

I mean, it's maybe like those old 'aggregator' providers, broadly speaking, who can market a booking service but don't need an operator's licence because the lower order platforms/providers and individual drivers and/or proprietors themselves who the work is passed to do have a licence

Why they would want to do that, precisely, certainly isn't obvious. But, for a start, it passes the regulatory burden and risk on to those further down the chain...

Looking at Hertsmere's numbers in 2023 and 2024, they only had 60 and 80 PH operators at those times.

So I'm pretty sure the numbers sent to the DfT are wrong, or the DfT misread them.

_________________
IDFIMH

That's certainly a possibility, particularly given obvious past errors (although I think the stats are a lot better now than 20 years ago, although they way they're presented could maybe be improved).

On the other hand, that message on the Hertsmere Council website about "receiving a large volume of applications for private hire operator licences" and long processing times suggests something's afoot

I mean, in the normal course of events you just wouldn't expect a small scale/rural council like that to make such a statement unless something out-of-the-ordinary was going on...