Taxi Driver Online

Now you have the got the right idea.

I still believe that all LA's except Plymouth have adopted the Act, but you can see if Guildford can prove that they did.

That aside, the Act of 1847 does allow the vehicles (ie the Taxis) to be of "design or appearance" as pointed out by mancityfan - so a Hackney can be forced into a livery.

If the 1976 has been adopted (and I think Guildford will have adopted it) then the PH can be forced into a livery as well.

It would be self defeating if both Trades had to have the same livery, a claim by the LA "To make Taxis obvious to the Public" which allowed confusion with PH would be daft.

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

I am not sure that the parishes had to adopt the act, just that they needed to be sent a letter stating that the Council had adopted the act.
I don't believe that our Council adopted the act correctly because although I have seen a copy of the minutes I can find no record of a notice in any of the local papers. I spent several hours searching the archive at our library.

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Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

The term "without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing" means that the subsidiary specific provisions about Councils being able to require that taxis are clearly marked does not have the effect of reducing the scope of the general first principle that any condition must be necessary for a reason. Guildford taxis already had very large topsigns, so the addition of green livery was not necessary for any proper reason.

In fact Guildford lied and said it would prevent what happened in Rotherham from occurring in Guildford, when the Rotherham taxis were already liveried, and the Rotherham report made no mention of livery.

The proper starting point from which to approach this problem is the general Human Right as enshrined in Article 1 of the first protocol of the European Convention,

"Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions",

and I summarise,
"Except in the public interest as is deemed necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest".

That, plainly, is the starting point,the local Government Miscellaneous Provisions act 1976, Section 47,
empowers a local authority to attach to the grant of Hackney carriage licences and I quote,

"Such conditions as the council may consider reasonably necessary".
Subject to sub-Section three,
"Any person aggrieved having a right of appeal to a Magistrates' Court".


I believe that, in accordance with general legal principles, the burden of proving the grievance, on a balance of probabilities, lies upon you to show that the local authority's stated conditions are not reasonably necessary.
Now not knowing the full details or being part of any consultation, and of course they must have consulted with the trade, it’s hard to advise you on what is reasonably necessary.
I can think of lots of reasons why they would want a livery, but none of them are reasonably necessary.
Any good trade rep would also have got any extra costs paid for by the council or at least an increase in the tariff to pay for it.

If I went to court to appeal something I would base it on that the council had not adopted the act correctly, it would then be up to them to prove to the court that they had, and from your investigation they haven’t, which is mind boggling because they would have to pay all the fees they have charged since 1976 or the date they adopted it wrongly.

The minutes state that the act was adopted sometime in early 1981. I searched the local newspaper archives for the 6 months prior to 6 months post the date of adoption but found nothing. The Council do not have any records from that period because most things were destroyed in a big fire a few years ago. I thought that repayments were limited to 6 years.
However no one seems up to going to court to prove the case. There is one other thing that make me think that the Council know they are on sticky ground is that we have a bit of a problem with a chap allegedly running at least 3 cars without any licenses, in fact he lost his license years ago on health grounds, but although the Council know about him they have no, as yet, taken him to court.
A few years ago when I was the trade rep I tried to use this as a defence for a driver. The panel ignored it but unfortunately the driver would not risk appealing to the magistrates court where it could have been sorted.

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Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

Guildford Borough Council provided copies of the notices to parishes and the local paper, so they seem to have completed all the formalities correctly. Am waiting for reply to my letters from the Department of Transport and the Business Department.