Taxi Driver Online

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Why are so many Nottingham taxi drivers licensed by City of Wolverhampton Council?

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/not ... d-10059353

Nottingham City Council says it has been working to increase the number of drivers it licenses

Getting into an Uber in Nottingham and noticing the driver is licensed in Wolverhampton seems to be a common occurrence. But why do Nottingham residents decide to get their badges from an authority 60 miles away?

When comparing the fees between the two cities, the answer is pretty obvious. Drivers have to pay a total of £148 for a one-year licence from Nottingham City Council (NCC), or £260 for three years.

These are on top of the additional fees that new taxi drivers are expected to pay, which include a topography test, a driving test, safeguarding awareness and a medical check-up, all totalling another £200. The fees for the one-year licence in Wolverhampton are three times less on the other hand, standing at a modest £49.

Drivers who wish to be licensed for the next three years should expect to pay £98. The fees are even higher in other Nottinghamshire boroughs than they are in the city, such as in Gedling, where drivers have to fork out £250 for a one-year licence and £450 for three years.

City of Wolverhampton Council (CWC) currently licenses 701 drivers who are Nottingham residents. NCC refused Nottinghamshire Live's request to provide the data showing how many Nottingham residents are licensed by NCC, saying the information has to be requested through the Freedom of Information Act.

NCC added that its taxi licensing team "has been working hard" to encourage drivers licensed with CWC and who live in Nottingham to get licensed with NCC. The actions have reportedly resulted in an increase in the number of drivers applying to be licensed with NCC instead of CWC.

No data has been provided in that respect, however, with the council saying the information should, again, be requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

Why can't City of Wolverhampton Council turn down Nottingham applicants?

It is illegal for an authority to refuse an application based on the driver's address, the council explained. The high volume of applications requires a large team, which currently has 130 staff members.

There is still a backlog and as of April 3, CWC was processing applications received on December 13 last year. A spokesperson for CWC said: "Under the current law, drivers are able to apply to any licensing authority for taxi licences and it is illegal for the council to refuse a license application because of where they live.

"A large number of drivers choose to be licensed in Wolverhampton and we need to employ enough staff to manage the process. Our staff team of 130 deals with a wide variety of issues including processing applications, system administration/management, legal matters and customer services.

"Our officers also manage compliance matters and run regular proactive enforcement operations across the country, including over every weekend."

Does City of Wolverhampton Council profit from the high number of applications?

No. Councils do not gain financially from taxi licensing as fees are legally ring-fenced for spend only on related activities. A spokesperson for the council said: "Where our income generates a surplus, due to economies of scale, we must return the money to the trade by reducing our fees."

The Manchester Evening News previously reported that CWC has made £6.1million in the 2023/24 year alone from licensing drivers, according to finance papers from the authority. More than 30,000 drivers were licensed with CWC at the time.

What do Nottingham taxi drivers think?

Asif Maqsood, spokesman of the Nottingham Taxi Owners' and Drivers' Association, said the high number of drivers licensed in Wolverhampton operating in Nottingham is having a great impact on them. Mr Masqood also raised concerns about the drivers' ability to drive.

He explained: "We lost our business completely to these Wolverhampton drivers. They work all over the country. Some of them don't know how to drive a car on the road.

"Come down on a Saturday night and see around Old Market Square. These Wolverhampton drivers just park in the middle of the road to pick up and drop off and stop the traffic from going."

Mr Masqood added: "Nottingham drivers are fed up with Wolverhampton drivers. They park in our rank and we ask them to move because they're in a hackney carriage lane and they just say 'we are a taxi as well'.

"Most of them don't know what the difference is between a Nottingham hackney carriage and a Wolverhampton plate. I encourage everyone to join Nottingham City Council."

What does Nottingham City Council say?

In October 2015 two new sections were introduced to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, which is the legislation that governs the licensing of private hire operators, vehicles & drivers, by the Deregulation Act 2015. Sections 55A and 55B allow a private hire operator to sub-contract a booking to another private hire operator irrespective of where either is licensed within the UK mainland.

The council explained that this change brought to an end the former prohibition on a sub-contract other than between operators licensed by the same authority. A spokesperson said: "This is why PHVs [private hire vehicles] licensed by City of Wolverhampton now operate in Nottingham and elsewhere in the country.

"NCC officers work very closely with City of Wolverhampton enforcement officers and run regular joint and multi-agency enforcement operations to ensure that all licensed vehicles and drivers working in the City are legally compliant. And appropriate action is taken where required."

Didn't I once read that any request for information from a council had to be treated as an FOI request, so a direct enquiry to licensing would just be cutting out the middleman, so to speak? Or maybe that's just Scotland?

Anyway, you get the distinct impression they'd rather not answer the question, and are just using the FOI thing as an excuse...


So they're working hard to get more drivers badged locally by NCC, but also working very closely with Wolves and it's all hunky dory. Slight contradiction, surely...

(And while 'working closely with' is a bit of a PR cliche alert, maybe 'working very closely' just makes it sound like they're working very tirelessly to deflect attention )

So because the info request didn't start with 'Under the FoI Act', the council refused to answer.

I was of the opinion that the council had a duty to answer all reasonable press questions; the only thing the FoI Act changes is that they have to respond within a specific timescale.

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IDFIMH

Interesting that the wolverhampton fee probably reflects the actual cost of issuing the badge more nearly than any other council !

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

I suspect that in fact the council's obligation is more stringent even than that - any request by anyone is effectively an FOI request, even though the council has a formal FOI contact email etc - if you ask licensing directly, then it's an FOI request even if you don't describe it as such (assuming it conforms to the FOI rules, such as using a real name, disclosing contact details and being in writing).

Funny thing, though, you'd assume that would be bread and butter knowledge to the press in this case, or that they'd actually go forward with a formal FOI request. Maybe they have

If I ever received a reply from a council that says they are not going to answer unless it's a FoI (the likelihood of that happening via my local council is zero), then that council would receive a list of FoI's a mile long that would take them a very considerable time to address.

FFS just answer the question or reply saying it will take a little while to respond, but we will sort it ASAP.

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IDFIMH