Taxi Driver Online

Wolverhampton a magnet for taxi driver applications

Wolverhampton has registered about a third of England's taxi drivers and is inundated with applications, according to a report.

The city has taken on new staff in a bid to cope with demand, documents say.

Papers found the situation had emerged since the government in 2015 ruled drivers could register anywhere in the country, not just their local area.

Slower processing times and higher fees elsewhere had encouraged many drivers to choose Wolverhampton.

The council report also stated its licensing team prioritised drivers in its own area and had taken on 20 extra staff in the last year to deal with the volume of applications, with plans to appoint more.

In the last financial year, the city registered an extra 7,428 drivers, taking the total with a Wolverhampton licence to 26,745.

As of the middle of last month, there were 2,634 applications in the queue, with 1,924 processed but awaiting more information from the applicant.

A total of 927 drivers were said to be waiting for a hearing to determine their application.

Digital licensing service

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said that since the change in the law, Wolverhampton had invested heavily in its digital licensing service, reducing processing time and cost.

The report noted there had been a decline in the number of private hire drivers nationally since 2020, possibly, it said, because drivers had left the industry after seeing a loss of trade during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some drivers may have taken on related work as delivery drivers, the report added.

Members of the council's regulatory committee are set to discuss the matter on Wednesday.

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IDFIMH

If ever a report says 'Look at me we're the Dogs Bol****s, and the saviour of the trade', then this is it.

https://wolverhampton.moderngov.co.uk/d ... Growth.pdf

Enough to make one want to puke.

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IDFIMH

Yes, the BBC's rehash above uses the t-word and totally ignores the London dimension.

Was looking at that earlier and trying to make sense of the stats via the DfT's numbers. At least the document posted by Sussex clarifies the London issue, but other than that

Even allowing for London, and correcting 'taxi' to 'private hire', still can't work out where the 'one third of England's drivers' claim comes from.

And because of dual badges, no one can actually say how many of England's total PHDs are badged by Wolverhampton anyway.

Can't be bothered wading through the Wolves report with a fine tooth comb, but a quick read found this - hope this isn't the council's understanding of the law, because it's nonsense:


What's to stop them issuing a HC badge to a resident of another area?

It's just that they couldn't work in that other area. At least, assuming Wolves has an intended use clause

There are many drivers in our Borough who are licensed Hackney drivers who don't live here. We have at least 3 who live in Rutland and 4 who live in Leicester. However they do have cars plated here and tend to work here.

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Grandad,

Yes, Grandad, same all over really. And I was one of them, living in Dundee for years, but working in Fife. (However, my excuse is that I was kind of trapped in Dundee )

And there's actually a lot more drivers living in Dundee and working in Fife these days, for reasons (I suspect) that I won't mention on here

And, of course, the reverse is true, and when I worked in Dundee there were several plates licensed to people living abroad, including one in Australia

And I suspect any council saying you had to live in its area to be issued with a badge or plate could be challenged in court. In fact, there's legislation in Scotland which specifically outlaws councils saying that you have to live in its area, and indeed outlaws councils saying that you can't have another job or trade.

But I'd guess the stuff in the Wolverhampton report isn't actually a statement of their legal position on this, and is really more about their expansionist approach to issuing private hire licences, and is simply clumsily expressed in terms of the legals

I think the 33.3% relates to the number of new drivers getting licensed rather than the existing trade.

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IDFIMH

Ah, yes, that would certainly explain it.

As well as the usual failure to distinguish between HC and PH, of course another common failure in articles like this is the failure to distinguish between renewals and new applications.

this isn't really news to us what bothers me more id the government turns a blind eye.

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector