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LICENCES 'WILL DRIVE FIRM TO THE WALL'

12:00 - 27 June 2005
The South West's largest airport transfer cab firm fears it could be driven out of business if Plymouth City Council forces it to become licensed. David Rothwell, boss of Prince Rock-based Flight Link, fears that if council 'proposals' lead to him having to licence his 16 vehicles and 25 drivers, it would cost him thousands of pounds.

He said: "It could put me out of business."

Until now, Plymouth firms which only drive people to airports, ports and holiday camps have enjoyed an exemption under the Plymouth City Council Act 1975 which requires other private hire vehicles to be licensed. But now the council has written to nine airport transfer companies in the city, asking questions about their businesses: how many vehicles they use, makes and registrations, carrying capacity, operating hours, destinations and how bookings are made.

The firms replied and the council will now decide whether to follow other local authorities by requiring them to be licensed.

The council claims the proposals are 'theoretical' at this stage and says it is not planning to ask drivers to take a 'knowledge' test.

But it says the airport transfer business has grown 'dramatically during the last three or four years'.

A spokeswoman said: "We are working on a proposal to licence vehicles which carry fewer than nine people on a restricted licence basis."

A restricted licence covers a precise activity, such as airport runs. Vehicles carrying more than nine passengers are classed as public service vehicles and outside the control of the local authority.

The spokeswoman said local authorities had taken different views on the issue and added: "Some authorities are not yet treating them as private hire."

However, others are insisting on licences. South Hams District Council requires airport transfer vehicles not belonging to a travel agent to be licensed as private hire vehicles or hackney carriages.

Mr Rothwell said his firm was the biggest in the South West, with full public liability insurance, and he would welcome licensing if it clamped down on 'Mickey Mouse' operators 'running one or two vehicles on ordinary car insurance from home'.

However, he said if drivers had to be licensed it could cost '£700 a time' and he feared that, once licensed, staff would decamp to mainstream taxi firms.

He also feared having to dismiss staff and look for licensed replacements, and worried that even though his vehicles were not old the council might decide they were 'not suitable' for such work.

Mr Rothwell said he had held a meeting with two other operators and listed their joint concerns to the council.

He said, "I've had sleepless nights over it."

Forbes Watson, retired chief executive of Plymouth City Council, said he had argued for years that the 1975 Act was not interpreted correctly and airport transfer firms should never have been exempt.

Mr Watson, a trained solicitor, said that without licensing, 'potentially unsound vehicles' could be operating with 'unqualified' drivers who had not been through police checks.

if his company and drivers are out to scratch then he's got nothing to worry about.

i belive that ANYBODY driving the paying public should have CRB's, medicals and driving standards tests.

i have seen a big rise in these types of firms in the city. and i've seen them parked up in the city centre car parks late on saturday nights too. a few of them do rural runs from the villages in to the nightcubs and back. so surely if they want to do PH work then they should be licenced as PH?

Bollox. Or in the unlikely event that it did, then he shouldn't have been in business in the first place.

I think that if these people didn't grossly exaggerate these things then they might be taken a bit more seriously.

But it does highlight the inconsistencies of this type of thing, if we needed reminding.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

A level playing field, whatever next

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Yes, and I can't really see the difference between nightclub work and driving people to the airports.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

as well as the school runs they do too.

The iffy firm aside, is this the same Plymouth Council that has just lost over a quater of a million pounds on a stupid fight to try and stop some bloke getting an operators license cos they didn't like his mate, yet they allow some mush to operate unlicensed?:-k

Did they get their LOs and councillors from a jumble sale?

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IDFIMH

Goodness me what ever next.

Fancy having to get rid of un-licensed and un-checked drivers, and having to use fully licensed and fully checked drivers.

I just can't work out how the other 99.9999999% of use manage to cope.

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IDFIMH

thats the view of many down here either that or the council have their quota of 'care in the community' employees all in the licencing dept.

It looks like the penny has finally dropped, and someone has told them they need to get those things called taxi/PH licenses.

TAXI DRIVERS LOSE JOBS

About 20 workers at a Plymouth home-to-airport taxi service have been told they have lost their jobs. Staff at the Plymouth branch of Flightlink South West learned their fate at a surprise meeting at 4pm yesterday.

One driver, who would not be named, said there were fears that customers due back from holiday would be left stranded at airports.

Door-Airport-Door, an airport taxi service based at St Judes, will try to honour Flightlink's bookings.

Jim Owen, who runs Door-Airport-Door, said: "I'm trying to recover those who are coming back off holiday. I can't say I can guarantee getting everyone back."

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IDFIMH