Taxi Driver Online

I hope Mr Taylor isn't going to write to the press about this.

_________________
IDFIMH

I am sure the thought never crossed his mind although on this occasion I believe he has notified the press to be there.

The press will be drooling at the mouth waiting to get their teeth into Mr. Inch and Mr. Inch knows it. I don’t think he is too happy with the legal department dropping him in the [edited by admin] like this.

Did I forget to mention that the Council Solicitors are also cited, one of them a Ms. J H has got a lot of explaining to do after chasing one of my colleagues down the road threatening to tear up the £700 cheque for his application.

You couldn’t make stuff like this up.

I never seen this post or I would have responded to it forthwith.

TDO, ethics and morals are only up for discussion when doing nothing and pontificating over what other people do is an option.

One minute we are brothers in arms the next we are individuals with our own businesses, only they are not businesses you are an employee of the council. The finance company owns the owner and the owner owns the driver and so forth.

If you really believed in de-restriction you would organise everyone to fight for what you believed in.

As my solicitor said “why would you pay £45,000 for a public licence when you can challenge the Council for a few hundred pounds, if everyone gets together you can’t lose”?


There is no guarantee that de-restriction is not just round the corner when you buy a plate because you hand all your control over to councillors who don’t give a [edited by admin] about you anyway.


When everything goes pear shaped it is everyone’s fault but yours, everyone looks to point the finger, as I have said before you pay your money and you take your chances, its called business or the real world.

Everyone who I have met who takes the ethical or moral stance do so from the point of view that doing nothing is better than doing something for fear of loss or ridicule. It is easy to have opinion while saying you believe in something and doing nothing to commit to cause.

TDO, you run a forum and a bloody good one but you, JD, and Sussex, are wasted pontificating over this [edited by admin] instead of doing it, you are more than qualified but unfortunately you are the only ones who can’t see it. Start talking about what you are doing rather that what other people are doing, what you talk about is history what you do makes history, the choice is yours?[/b]

I never seen this post or I would have responded to it forthwith.

TDO, ethics and morals are only up for discussion when doing nothing and pontificating over what other people do is an option.

One minute we are brothers in arms the next we are individuals with our own businesses, only they are not businesses you are an employee of the council. The finance company owns the owner and the owner owns the driver and so forth.

If you really believed in de-restriction you would organise everyone to fight for what you believed in.

As my solicitor said “why would you pay £45,000 for a public licence when you can challenge the Council for a few hundred pounds, if everyone gets together you can’t lose”?


There is no guarantee that de-restriction is not just round the corner when you buy a plate because you hand all your control over to councillors who don’t give a [edited by admin] about you anyway.


When everything goes pear shaped it is everyone’s fault but yours, everyone looks to point the finger, as I have said before you pay your money and you take your chances, its called business or the real world.

Everyone who I have met who takes the ethical or moral stance do so from the point of view that doing nothing is better than doing something for fear of loss or ridicule. It is easy to have opinion while saying you believe in something and doing nothing to commit to a cause.

TDO, you run a forum and a bloody good one but you, JD, Sussex and Alex, are wasted pontificating over this [edited by admin] instead of doing it, you are more than qualified but unfortunately you are the only ones who can’t see it. Start talking about what you are doing rather that what other people are doing, what you talk about is history, what you do makes history, the choice is yours?[/b]

The problem with 'doing it' is that current law allows councils to keep quotas providing they survey every now and again.

If your council surveyed last year, I would advise you not to be 'doing it' this week, because the odds would be very much against you.

On JD's list it shows where drivers, in a particular manor, should be 'doing it', and one or two of them are, but our trade gives enough money already to those with the white wigs without wasting any more on cases with little chance of success.

_________________
IDFIMH

English case law suggests that the growth in the number of private hire cars may be indicative of latent demand for taxis. I consulted with Halcrow who confirmed that this is the case but the councils choose to omit a correlation study including PHC from the surveys. The questions are hand picked. The Halcrow consultant said there is nothing stopping a determined group conducting or commissioning their own independent survey with criteria which includes the latent demand question and PHC.


Once the study is concluded the council would have to commission another study with the correct criteria to refute your claim, failing that your plates would be granted. In the event you did end up in court it would be down to the opinion of an independent expert to settle the case.


As the Lawyer says, “If your group is large enough the sum of money would be almost insignificant”.


In Edinburgh there is a group of 110 persons on the interested parties list it if they could have got together it would have cost as little as £200 each to fight the council. Instead they wait 10 years on what amounts to be an illegal list.

The bottom line is that Councils cannot fight continuous court actions against multiple applicants who finance these actions collectively.

Sussex, I looked at all different stratagems before challenging the council on this one.

Since applying in Nov 2004 the PHC have increased in Edinburgh by almost a hundred vehicles at today’s date.


Now, what was it you were saying about doing nothing?

Interesting.

For various reasons my strategy has always been to campaign for political change, particularly on a national basis, rather than using existing law.

However, there is clearly merit in the latter, and more to the point, the latter could lead to the former anyway.

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

Now we’re talking, you have 405 registered users in this forum I am sure you could coordinate a unified approach. Put the strategy in place and replicate it across the country.

Find legal teams get them to set up a holding account and a data base for applicants while putting across your argument with a breakdown in the financial scale of cost e.g. how much it will be for 10, 20, 30, etc, to challenge the council.


Once you get the numbers you require go for it.

I've got a feeling in my waters that this may well be happening somewhere in the South West.

_________________
IDFIMH

Rebellion, that’s what I like to hear.

God help Edinburgh if it is the same brief,yer doomed,same as the guys in Dundee,the new plates will be skimming on the Tay river soon,city is in a bad way.
Happy Harry.

This in reply to this post and your preceding post, which I hope clarifies my position.

From my position I would just like to confirm that the information and knowledge given freely to this site is available to everyone. Those who wish to challenge a council on any issue and in particular numbers control has the necessary information available on TDO which allows them to do so.

I fully understand what you say about being the national focal point for a campaign to remove numbers but a full-blown campaign such as the one you allude to "at this moment in time" might not be the right approach.

This site hosts more information on the Taxi trade outside of London as a whole than every other site on the Internet put together. Any group or persons who wish to take their council to court will first have to organise themselves locally. TDO can only make available information that may be helpful in those areas were a council has purposely disregarded the law.

I note you mentioned survey rebuttal? You are quite correct in what you say but I might add this was pointed out extensively some time ago in the John Preece thread. A full opinion was given of what would be required but even then it may not be enough. In England and Wales and as far as I know in Scotland there has never been a comprehensive challenge to a survey, perhaps that will change in Plymouth. There are other legal opportunities that could be explored in the Plymouth case that were highlighted in the Preece thread, we will have to wait and see if those avenues of opportunity play a part in the proceedings. I might add that any person contemplating legal action should read what I wrote in the Preece thread because it highlights options that have so far been missed by those taking legal action.

In respect of being a focal point for removing numbers, I have already stated that I fully understand the direction in which you are coming but you have to remember that sometimes there are more subtle ways of achieving ones objective.

Eight months ago there were 150 authorities that had a policy of quantity control, today there are only 53 with another 53 still to decide their policy. I doubt very much that this number could have been achieved by using different tactics than the one being used at present. We have to remember that facts speak for themselves. Facts combined with advice from the Government, which states "A licensing Authority should only restrict numbers where it can be shown that there is a clear benefit to the public by restricting such numbers", that statement combined with the facts is no doubt a powerful combination to resist.

In respect of what might be taking place there are many happenings behind the scenes that at times cannot be discussed because of the privacy element but when they are put in the public domain the are normally first aired on TDO. It has already been stated that when the remaining 53 councils have decided on policy those councils that are outside the law will be highlighted and any person or persons wishing to challenge an authority will have that information available.

In addition to that, when every council has made their policy decision a report will be sent to the OFT, and DfT outlining what is required in order to get the remaining restricted authorities to fall in line with the OFT recommendations.

So as you can see, although there are many ways to address the problem of restriction in England and Wales it may be wise to first give those councils the opportunity to address their own particular needs.

Those persons wishing to take legal action once a council falls outside the law can avail themselves of the vast knowledge base that TDO supplies. No one as far as I know has ever been refused advice on TDO, no matter what the subject matter might be.

Regards

JD

14/15 July 2005

Edninburgh Sheriffs court.

CEC V 3 Maxblack LLP

This case is still ongoing as of 13.40 pm, the result should be known sometime this afternoon but I my not be around to get it. If anyone wishes to find out the verdict they can phone Edinburgh Sheriffs court on 0131 2252525 and ask for civil proceedings. The case number is B170/05. They should be able to inform you of the result.

Regards

JD

CEC V 3 Maxblack LLP


This is just a flavour of how things went as I was cited as a witness and only sat through the last afternoon. This is an abridged version of events give by a number of different people who sat through the case at different points.

Everything was going our way even though the council solicitors were lying under oath and they had failed to produce minutes of meetings that were relevant to the case. They tried to introduce a draft copy of the Jacobs Report which was duly binned by the sheriff. Our QC introduce the Coyle case and continued down the line of questioning.



(There was information to state that the Jacobs report was initiated because of the increase in PHC being indicative of latent unmet demand for taxis. The Jacobs draft document has no PHC case study, this was omitted to produce a negative i.e. “no unmet demand”.)



Mr. Millar (Principle Council Solicitor) got kicked all over the court while twisting and turning trying getting himself off the hook. (When asked, how they assessed demand his reply was that he “consulted with members of the trade and got a feeling”



J H (council solicitor) relied on lying and her ignorance of licensing law to cover her tracks because of her relatively new position in the council, while it was also apparent that she had been well schooled by Mr. Millar.




Peter Lang (Licensing tea boy) looked like he was caught in the headlights of a car and bumbled his way through the evidence proving that the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing.




Jim Inch Head of Corporate Services was actually very helpful he gave no resistance to establishing that the Hallcorw report was possibly out of date by 2003 and that no update had been attempted.




That all said and done, the cusp of the situation came at the summation Our QC dropped the ball over a misunderstanding with the sheriff on a couple of points involving licensing applications and the councils inaction to up date themselves with information. Although this was addressed it appeared that the sheriff was looking for evidence on our part to prove the Council wrong, while failing to see that the lack of evidence proved that council had done nothing since the Hallcrow Report. Everything pointed to the fact that the Council had paid nothing more than lip service to Coyle and Dundee and for that reason should be denied the extension.





Our QC got a rough ride for a while trying to pull back the situation, I can only hope that the Sheriff caught the thread, unfortunately there was no way of telling.



My personal feeling is that you just can’t tell which way this is going to go up to the last 30 minutes I would have said the balance lay with us, now I am not so sure.

Some of the guys think it is lost others are still optimistic, 50-50 split, only time will tell.

The decision should be very quick 2-3 weeks at the most.

Thank you for this information.

After the Dundee case the only issue that should have been relevant in the Edinburgh application was whether the Sheriff should allow Edinburgh council to defer all applications on supposedly mainly oral evidence from existing Taxi drivers and a preliminary report from Halcrow.

Of course this was the exact conclusion this site came to before the case even started. The sheriff really should not depart from the ruling laid down by the higher court and if he does then the applicants should appeal that decision.

It was stated in the Dundee case that a council must have evidence of demand at the time an applicant applies for the license. The higher court ruled that there was no provision for a council to defer an applicant while it measured demand. The deferment argument as I had previously stated was going to be the biggest test of Scottish law in this case. Edinburgh council no doubt played the deferment card to the full and the Sheriff who might not be so familiar with Taxi legislation may have felt some sympathy for the position Edinburgh council now finds itself.

Having said that, the law is the law and the sheriff must apply himself to the law. I am surprised you said your Brief got somewhat rattled because as far as I can see he was holding all the aces. It would be interesting to find out what questions actually rattled him and why your colleagues think they may end up on the losing side.

Where you happy with the Barrister representing you?

Regards

JD