Taxi Driver Online

The last two paragraphs are interesting, well at least to me.

It appears that the government is looking to expand licensing areas significantly, to be governed by a local Transport Authority, hopefully not as large as the ones that govern buses.

_________________
IDFIMH

A consultation on making all local transport authorities responsible for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing, which would increase consistency in licensing and make better use of enforcement powers, will be launched shortly.

This would presumably be part of the English Devolution white paper?

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

I'd pretty much forgotten about all this (and still haven't viewed the whole committee session), but there seem to be oral transcripts of the meeting online now, plus one or two late submissions - they're presumably all online now...

But seems that the NPHTA have been allowed a late supplementary submission

Just had a very brief look, but looks like it's a response to some of the committee stuff. The bit about capping PHV numbers caught my eye, though - I wonder if that would be their response to HC caps

Wasn't sure what their stance would be on PH caps, but I'm pretty sure a lot of their members would take an opposite approach

But, as per usual with the NPHTA, what they say at any particular time depend on which cap they're wearing. Pardon the pun

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9 ... lications/

This late submission seems to be from bods in the Blackpool trade, and it doesn't read like they're too impressed by licensing and enforcement in the town

https://committees.parliament.uk/writte ... 44468/pdf/

And, of course, wasn't Mr Petrak the one who supported PHV quotas?

Anyway, I'm surprised the NPHTA have come out so strongly against PHV caps. Or, at least, Mr Lawrie has

By some strange coincidence, when I was reading some of the TransComm transcripts a few days ago this appeared on TaxiPoint at almost exactly the same time (and the best part of a month after the meeting itself), just when I was reading this particular stuff from the Wolverhampton top bod.

But after reading about it all for around a decade now, this certainly isn't how I'd view it all. Mr Pattison either doesn't know the history of it all, or he was spinning an at least slightly dishonest line to the TransComm members


’WE NEVER ASKED FOR THIS’: Wolverhampton Council defends its controversial role in England’s taxi and private hire licensing sector

[...]David Pattison, Chief Operating Officer at Wolverhampton Council, admitted that 96% of the drivers licensed by his authority live outside the city. This has sparked concerns that Wolverhampton has become a “licence factory”, issuing tens of thousands of licences to drivers who then work in other regions with little or no connection to Wolverhampton itself.

“We never asked for this,” Pattison told the committee.

“We are legally obliged to process an application if the driver is fit and proper. We cannot lawfully refuse someone just because they don’t live in Wolverhampton.”[...]

Your officials were never legally obliged to roam the country undertaking driver entry courses, but you did.

Shame on you.

_________________
IDFIMH

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin