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PostPosted: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:11 pm 
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Something we've discussed on here, and no doubt the tip of a very big iceberg.

But another thing that could have usefully been included in the PHTM tables rather than the likes of badge and plate numbers :idea:


Lancashire taxi driver on wrong side of border misses out on Covid grant

https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire- ... e-19839936

Despite paying his rates to that council, he's missed out on £300 Covid grant

A taxi driver who works cross-county borders has complained after not receiving a grant promised by Liverpool City Region to their authorities' private drivers.

The Sefton-plated driver, who lives just over the border in Burscough, has expressed his annoyance at the fact he is unable to receive the grant of up to £300 which his Merseyside colleagues have been given.

He said to LancsLive: “It’s really not ideal. Everyone received a letter just before Christmas saying they would be able to have the grant, but I did not get such a notification, even though I am a Sefton-plated driver.

"I think it is a bit silly as it should be given to all Sefton-plated drivers and it shouldn't really matter where you live, as you work for that council and pay your rates to them to be a private hire driver."

Taxi drivers in Southport and across the Liverpool City Region were able to apply for a further extended £200 grant, after being granted £2million funding from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

The initial amount of £2million has been increased to a support package of £3.5 million, meaning cab drivers who had already been eligible for the £100 grant can now apply for an additional grant of £200.

The money - which is going to Sefton Council and another five other local authorities - will be used to pay for taxi licences for drivers in the Liverpool City Region, of which the West Lancashire driver does not fall under as he lives just on the wrong side of the border.

In a joint statement, the Leaders and Acting Mayor of the six City Region Local Authorities, and Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, said: “We recognise the hardship experienced by our area’s taxi drivers, who have seen their trade seriously affected by the Coronavirus restrictions.

“We acknowledged when we launched this fund that it was a gesture of support. We know that this additional funding is still largely symbolic but have made it available in recognition of the ongoing impact of the pandemic.

“As the City Region’s political leadership, we are continuing to press the Government for financial support packages that work for everyone whose livelihood has been affected by Covid-19 restrictions.”


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:12 pm 
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Quote:
The Sefton-plated driver, who lives just over the border in Burscough...

Just over five miles from the Sefton border at Robin's Bridge (as the crow flies).

At least that's just off the top of my head, relying on my extensive knowledge of the area's geography :---)


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 16, 2021 5:13 pm 
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The grant amount is in the discretion of the Liverpool City Region. I note below the number of drivers & vehicles, plenty of vehicles are not being worked at present.
The number of licences in each area is interesting.
By comparison I list Bristol in the comfortably off south; look at the relative number of vehicles licensed. There are no neighbouring areas with high numbers just to compare with e.g. Sefton.
The total government grant is £20 per head. If the total grant was to each local authority the sum available to each driver is greatly reduced due to the number of drivers per head of population in Knowsley Liverpool and Sefton.
I looked at Bristol as it is a southern city comparable in size to Liverpool but it has no neighbouring conurbation which feeds it but manages with 354 people for each licensed vehicle.


POPULATION NUMBER OF DRIVERS CAB NUMBERS PHV NUMBERS TOTAL VEHICLES LICENSED EXCESS OF DRIVERS TO VEHICLES PEOPLE FOR EVERY DRIVER PEOPLE FOR EACH VEHICLE
HALTON 128432 460 267 94 361 99 279 355
KNOWSLEY 149571 2077 231 1227 1458 619 72 241
LIVERPOOL 496784 3915 1427 1552 2978 1261 126 166
SEFTON 275562 6821 270 4895 5165 1656 40 53
ST HELENS 180049 662 63 477 540 122 271 333
WIRRAL 323266 1515 219 918 1137 378 213 284

BRISTOL 467099 1542 469 848 1317 225 302 354

DATA FROM “PHTM” FEB 202. ROUNDED TO NEAREST WHOLE FIGURE done by Richie

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:10 pm 
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Interesting questions arise not just due to the excess of drivers compared to vehicles: any ideas?
The number of vehicles per head of population is stark, how does this relate to the amount of the grant for the trade. The government's fund available to authorities is £20 per head; which is divided up by local authorities. had Sefton received its share directly from the government (not via the City Region) and had the same share of the total been given to the trade its per driver grant would be minuscule?
Even if we assume that the vehicles in Liverpool, Sefton, and Knowsley to some extent service St Helens Halton (Runcorn) and Wirral there is a vehicle for every 133 people in the Liverpool City Region and one for every 353 people in Bristol.
Why, ideas?


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 12:58 pm 
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richardjay wrote:
Even if we assume that the vehicles in Liverpool, Sefton, and Knowsley to some extent service St Helens Halton (Runcorn) and Wirral there is a vehicle for every 133 people in the Liverpool City Region and one for every 353 people in Bristol. Why, ideas?

Funnily enough, I recall looking at the Bristol numbers some years ago, and thinking vehicles there on the low side, while Merseyside tending to be on the high side (of course, Sefton always misleading as Delta has historically operated across Merseyside, but if you look across Merseyside as a whole then that inconsistency should be ironed out, as you seem to be suggesting. Of course, in the days of Uber, Sefton cars are operating even further afield than Merseyside, but I've no idea whether that's 'statistically significant' or not).

Then there's the likes of Bradford, which seems to have a population not much bigger than Bristol's, but around double the number of licensed vehicles.

Then, of course, there's Wolverhampton in particular, which is off the scale as regards cross-border working, so no real point looking at the figures there at all. Of course, analyses have been done of drivers' addresses to try to work out where they're actually working that way, but that's not foolproof either, as the story at the top of the thread indicates.

But cross-border living and working has always been a problem as regards analysing the numbers, particuarly in large urban areas where maybe drivers more likely to live outside the council area where they work, and offices more likely to cover conurbations which encompass several local authorities.

Mr T/RichardJay wrote:
I looked at Bristol as it is a southern city comparable in size to Liverpool but it has no neighbouring conurbation which feeds it...

On the other hand, Wikipedia states:

"With a population of 463,400, it is the most populous city in South West England. The wider Bristol Built-Up Area has the 10th-largest population in England. The urban area population of 670,000 is the 11th-largest in the United Kingdom."

Wiki also states Bristol's Metro population (metropolitan area) as being over one million :-o

Of course, that maybe suggests that Bristol is even more under-supplied by licensed vehicles than your figures indicate. On the other hand, these urban and metro populations will include several council areas. So who knows what's going on there in terms of where vehicles are licensed, and where offices are operating from. For a start, Bristol Airport is in the North Somerset council area.

And there are plenty other details that could be relevant, such as singled/doubled cars (the prevalence of which varies from area to area) and the proportion of full-time/part-time drivers, which again varies between locations.

Even the published figures can be unreliable - there's certainly more detail in the DfT figures these days, but when I looked closesly at these things in the past, there were plenty of obvious anamolies and errors, such as double counting dual badges, and published vehicle numbers way in excess of driver numbers.

So all a potential minefield and rabbit hole for any kind of anaylsis. Which is why I said recently that I couldn't really see the point of PHTM publishing the vehicle and driver numbers in its analysis of Covid grants. To be of even any use as regards the point you're making, they'd have had to publish population figures as well.

Likewise, the figures for grants that they published didn't make it clear if they were for drivers or vehicles, so a bit pointless also publishing driver and vehicle numbers.


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:40 pm 
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:shock:

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:43 pm 
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:-s


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:45 pm 
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MR T wrote:
:shock:

Ah, you deleted it before I managed to say:
:-s

:wink: 8-[


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:54 pm 
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1700 sefton p/h do not work in merseyside let alone sefton

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:03 pm 
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I think in this day and age the correlation between population and taxi/pirate hire numbers is misleading nationwide post uber etc.

It might be nearer the mark to take the correlation on a regional basis.

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:42 pm 
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MR T wrote:
1700 sefton p/h do not work in merseyside let alone sefton

That's a lot :-o

Definitely statistically significant 8)

BTW, was your earlier point that the bit I quoted was actually written by Richard?

I've amended my post accordingly.

If it's not correct then no big deal either way :)


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:44 pm 
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edders23 wrote:
It might be nearer the mark to take the correlation on a regional basis.

Indeed, at least for some purposes.

But if it's as regards how local authorities are allocated Covid cash according to their population, and how this is divvied up to the trade, then to that extent a regional analysis of drivers and vehicle isn't much use :?


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 3:35 pm 
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StuartW wrote:
MR T wrote:
1700 sefton p/h do not work in merseyside let alone sefton

That's a lot :-o

Definitely statistically significant 8)

BTW, was your earlier point that the bit I quoted was actually written by Richard?

I've amended my post accordingly.

If it's not correct then no big deal either way :)

More like it was not written by me

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