Plymouth faces more taxi protests after big rises drivers' fees(Worth seeing the damn good looking Trade Rep, I know him well.....)https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/p ... ts-2672292Plymouth faces more protests by taxi drivers after a decision to raise the fees they pay to the city council.
Councillors decided to impose increases of more than 80% in some cases to the cost of driver and vehicle licences.
The city council’s taxi licensing committee had delayed a decision last month after a legal challenge from Plymouth drivers.
But after taking legal advice, councillors decided at a meeting on Thursday to go ahead with the rise to hackney carriage and private hire fees first published for consultation in mid-January.
The committee decided to seek a meeting between the council and industry representatives to tackle some of the issues they had raised.
It also decided to carry out a review of hackney cab passenger fares which are set by the council.
Hackney carriages are the black cabs that pick up from taxi ranks and can be hailed in the street, while private hire taxis have to be booked in advance.
The fee increases are the first in a five-year programme to make sure the taxi accounts for both sectors stay in the black.
It is understood that noisy drive-by protests by taxi drivers held in Plymouth earlier this year are likely to resume following the decision.
Councillors were told the taxi licensing service has to be self-financing from the fees
They were told rises in fees for each category of licence were needed to cover the full costs of the administration involved in each item.
Councillors were told that officers had taken legal advice following a legal letter on behalf of the Plymouth Licensed Taxi Association.
The letter highlighted a High Court case between taxi drivers and the council at Wakefield in Yorkshire.
A judge ruled the council’s policy to recover the cost of enforcement action against drivers from the vehicle licence fee was unlawful. Wakefield is waiting for the written ruling before deciding whether to appeal.
Plymouth council’s licensing service manager Rachael Hind said that after taking fresh legal advice officers were satisfied with the way the taxi accounts had been run.
The committee report said the rises were needed because the hackney carriage driver and vehicle licence accounts were already in deficit and the private hire vehicle licence account was predicted to go into the red by the end of March.
The new fees will be in force for a year and will be reviewed annually over the five-year period to ensure the taxi accounts stay out of deficit.
There were 82 objections to the original fee increases which were published for consultation in mid-January, with most responses saying they were too high.
The new fees for hackney carriages will see a one-year vehicle licence go from £210 to £342, a rise of £132 or 62.9 per cent, working out at an extra £2.54 a week;
• one-year driver’s licence: £112 to £165 (£53/47.3%/£1.02);
• three-year driver’s licence: £238 to £435 (£197/82.8%/£1.26).
• For private hire, a one-year vehicle licence will go from £117 to £170 (£53/45.3%/£1.02);
• one-year driver’s licence: £82 to £120 (£38/46.3%/£0.73);
• three-year driver’s licence: £160 to £300 (£140/87.5%/£0.90).
Christopher Wildman, assistant secretary of the Plymouth Licensed Taxi Association, told councillors that local drivers would consider mounting their own legal challenge to the fees increase.
He said drivers had been told to off-set the rises against tax, but many were not earning enough to pay tax.
Mr Wildman said Plymouth cab fares for longer journeys were among the lowest in the country.
Roy Hamilton, secretary of the taxi association, said the fee increases amounted to drivers paying an extra £144,000 to make up for previous mistakes by the council which had led to the current financial situation.
Mr Wildman said after the meeting he was disappointed on behalf of the trade that fees were going up.
Committee chair Cllr Chris Mavin said after the meeting the decision to increase fees “was not an easy one to make” but was necessary to keep the trade accounts out of the red.
He said: “We know that the taxi trade faces rising costs and we sympathise.
He said the costs of the service were more than just issuing a licence.
In the past year, 487 vehicles had random safety inspections and some were taken off the road for defects to be put right.
The council dealt with 196 complaints against drivers and 22 had their licence reviewed by the taxi committee.
Cllr Mavin said: “The proposed fees for Hackney carriage drivers will see an increase of £3.56 per week for one-year vehicle and driver licences while private hire drivers’ cost will increase by £1.75 per week for one-year vehicle and driver licences.
“Keeping the trade regulated and preventing the public from harm must be a priority for the council.
“During the course of today’s meeting, trade representatives raised a number of suggestions on how the council and trade could work together more closely.
“We welcome these ideas and have committed to sitting down to talk through them to see how, going forward, we can provide the best possible service for the people of Plymouth.”
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