Taxi Driver Online

But is buying one not just business?

Well I kind of agree with a lot of your points, but tell me Ali, why did you never consider buying one before, you say you paid 156k in rentals,you could have put a couple of cabs on for that, is it an ethical reason or was it purely financial?

a bit of both i suppose

was never that interested for years,until my earnings started to drop and i watched especially over recent years phc and out of town taxis,blatantly tout
in the streets not just at the weekend but during the week also.(thats what happens when thier numbers get close to ours)

so i decided to get myselfelf on the waiting list( i knew this list had been closed since 1994 but could see no reason why?

after months of buerocratic bull from the council i finally got the answer that broke the camels back, heres a quote from mr lang in an email to me last year.

"i can see the problems if the list was reopened,as someone not already on the list would, possibly leapfrog people who have been on the list for more than ten years"

at first glance this doesnt seem to make sense,what you have to remember here is that this waiting list is ran on a points system.

I:E more points if you dont have a operators licence
less if you already have one,
and also points for how long youve been driving etc.

what the council meant was
although i met all thier citeria for going straight to the top of the list i was however denied that oppertunity why? and you cant get on it as the council put it.

another case of the council appearing to by fair(by adopting a fair points system)
but on the other hand shooting themselves in the foot bye denying people the right to take advantage of the points system by refusing them the right to apply in the first place.

so why did i and others apply?

not much choice really

Well councillors removing restricted numbers is certainly not just business, so you should have nothing to worry about if that happens regarding your 'business'.

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

Was not the OFT report the basis for most of the DfT "guidelines? Was this same report not rejected in Scotland? Did the sheriff quote literally from the DfT source? Did the sheriff perhaps merely state what the guideline would require as far as was relevant to the case in hand?
I disagree with your other comment.
I have stated that "I would think that a policy review would look at supply and demand as part of the process" but only the monitoring (in whatever form) of supply and demand is relevant to this case.
Unlike you and JD, I do not think I know Scots law better than a qualified and competent member of the Scottish legal profession. I have read the notes of the Coyle and Dundee cases, and I do not see the same relevance to this appeal as you seem to. The time to argue on that point is when the applications are refused.
Perhaps you or JD could enlighten me as to your legal qualification and knowledge of Scots law.
The point judged here was that CEC, having kept demand monitored, acted to verify whether an indicator of possible SUD was true. The applications were lodged during the arrangements for this verification. There is good reason for deciding on the applications when the full up-to-date information is available. So just cause exists to extend the timeframe. The requirement is to know the level of demand at the time of deciding on the applications.

I don't have time to answer your post in detail at the moment, but in the meantime I'm clearly not a qualified lawyer and have no particular knowledge of Scots law beyond the few cases I've read on the subject.

However, I don't think that disqualifies me from having an opinion on the matter, and I suspect the reason you object to people having an opinion is that it doesn't concur with your own. And you clearly don't mind expressing an opinion yourself - it's that 'do as I say, not as I do' again!

However, perhaps you could address the little conundrum I alluded to earlier, which relates to a 'qualified and competent [presumably] member of the Scottish legal profession'.

The Scottish Executive Task Group set up to review the licensing legislation in 2002 said:

The Task Group was alert to the fact that the Trade is critical of the legislative provisions that prevent the transfer of licence plates, particularly following the death of the licence holder. The Task Group take the view that the provisions in the Act preventing the transfer of licences continue to be justified and that there is sufficient flexibility in the legislation for local authorities to consider any application from a spouse/partner in the event of the death or permanent incapacity of the licence holder.

The Task Group membership included:

Mr Robert Millar, City of Edinburgh Council, representing the Society of Local Authority Lawyers and Administrators in Scotland (SOLAR);

Yet an earlier CEC document posted by JD above (as well as several others) specifically refers to a transfer:

5 REQUEST TO TRANSFER TAXI LICENCE - PHILIP CAPALDI

A request had been received from Mr Philip Capaldi to transfer a taxi operator’s licence held by his deceased father to his own name. The applicant and his representative were heard and outlined the special circumstances which they felt would permit the Committee to grant the licence sought

So can licenses to transferred or not?

Or do you think we shouldn't ask these questions?

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

You tell me exactly which guidelines you are referring too and I shall tell you exactly where they came from?



I don't know what you mean by reject. The report contained three main recommendations did the Scottish executive reject all three or just one?



The Sheriff stated and I quote,

Guidelines by the Department of Transport to English local Authorities recommend that a survey should be carried out every three years.

You show me where the DfT have said they recommend a survey should be carried out every three years. That advice would not have have helped Dundee now would it?

The sheriff is suggesting that a survey would be valid up to and including three years. No Government department has ever said that.

What Sheriff Mackie should have said is that "there has been no legal timeframe applied to a survey of unmet demand in the United Kingdom excepting the ruling by the Scottish court of session that historical surveys cannot be relied upon as a means to retain numbers control".

Now that is the law in Scotland as you well know and if you didn't know, you certainly do now.

Regards

JD

I have always acknowledge I know very little about Scottish law in fact I have said it on TDO on many occasions but when the occasion arises I can apply my mind very quickly to the relevant law if need be. I hope the little piece in the CEC v 3maxblack thread demonstrates that the Sheriff might have been a little less than perfect in her adjudication of the appeal.

Regards

JD

The relevance is contained in two sections of the 1982 act. If the council fails section 3.1 then section 10.3 automatically follows. That is the relevance. The Sheriff is only the first stage of this litigation, the appeal court will ultimately decide if the council acted in bad faith by wilfully failing to process these applications. Therefore it is the appeal court that determines the law and not the Sheriff.

The facts of the evidence have been laid out in CEC v 3maxblack you have a lot to go on I hope you can come up with some constructive evidence that rebuts the conclusions I have drawn.

Regards

JD

Do you consider one stance survey in over 850 days and nights is keeping demand monitored? The relevance of a licensing officer suggesting on one occasion that private hire vehicles are still increasing is neither here nor there. The test for a council is to be sure of demand when an application falls due. The courts are not remotely concerned how that is done only that when it is done the standard of proof has to be high enough to convince the court that a council did indeed inform itself to the correct level of demand.

It is not about what a licensing officer might say it is about the council having proof that there is no demand that is not being met. Simple isn't it.

Proof versus uncertainty. That is what has to be addressed not what a licensing officer might have in his mind.

Regards

JD

Under every legal system in the UK Applications for licenses are not put on hold just because a licensing authority might be discussing whether or not to undertake an unmet demand survey. When these license applications were applied for, Edinburgh council was at a preliminary stage of the survey exercise, as this extract from the report of November 6th testifies.

Following discussions at the Hire Car Licensing Consultation Group meeting on 27
August a draft of a specification for a Survey of Demand has been completed. This
specification will be forwarded to members of the trade for comment before tenders
are invited.

Under your observation it would seem you are implying that all license applications should be decided on the completion of a survey, no matter how long that survey process may take? If that is not the case then perhaps you can tell us just how long a time frame a council should have in such circumstances? It would be interesting to see how long you think an applicant should be put on hold while a council conducts its survey?

Regards

JD

My observation implies no such thing.
My point was that, in this case it seems reasonable and legal to allow a process that is in progress to be completed.

what this sherrif has done is give councils almost unlimited time on any applications

this is a huge blow for the rights of future applicant and those on the interested parties list,thier is nothing good to come from this sherrifs decision

So should license applications be deferred until the survey process has been completed or should a licensing authority administer its duty under current legislation?

Had Dundee not started the Survey proccess when that appeal was heard? And what did the Court say about that? Just in case you have a selective memory I'll show you.

It is perfectly plain from the terms of that letter that, apart from the survey report of May 2000, all that was before the committee at their meeting on 5 September 2002 were two matters, namely information that a fresh survey was underway and was due to report during the following year and a submission on behalf of the applicants as to an increase in the customer demand for the service provided by the company. We consider that these matters, far from providing any support for the validity of the 507 figure, ought to have raised a question in the minds of the committee as to whether that remained an appropriate measurement of demand at that point in time.

Regards

JD

realcabforce wrote

"My observation implies no such thing.
My point was that, in this case it seems reasonable and legal to allow a process that is in progress to be completed."

id like to hear youre views on the coyle and dundee cases as these decisions went the other way.

just to see if youre argument stands up?