Taxi Driver Online

(*Full* East Fife Taxi Association press release and letter of objection posted over on the last page...)


So on one level it's all hugely impressive, and obviously someone has been through the legislation with a fine tooth comb

On the other hand, to a large extent it's just a blizzard of legalisms and the like that looks superficially impressive, but in reality doesn't amount to very much, and are just the kind of arguments made many times before regarding numerous councils, and which have enjoyed limited success.

No point going through it all, and after having a look through last night I'm not going to read it again in case I start waffling here with a thousand words or so, which would just be a waste of everyone's time.

But there's a lot of stuff about remoteness, and supervision and enforcement issues, and similar. But if you know the local trade then you could make a very similar case, albeit on a micro-scale rather than at the corporate behemoth level.

For example, the main people behind this objection have been making endless noise about enforcement and similar issues in the local trade in the past few years, and largely blaming the council. So to that extent, what they're trying to blame Uber for here potentially is to a large degree down to licensing authority regulation.

Same with the immigration stuff, for example. It's police and council who are responsible for all that via the application and vetting process for badges, in the main. So as long as Uber comply with their responsibility to make sure their drivers are badged, and vehicles plated, then in reality it's no different from the local trade.

Or there's that one about using a licence to the benefit of others who wouldn't be granted a licence. Not sure what the relevance of that is, really. What that's all about is making sure that criminals and gangsters aren't using licences which have been granted to 'front' or sham organisations, or people. I'm not sure that's really relevant. Of course, ultimately Uber is controlled remotely and via intricate business and corporate structures, but that's not quite the same as saying it's a front for gangsters, and all this does is obfuscate the whole thing. Although maybe that's the intention

As for the links to legislation at the bottom, I'm not sure if someone's made some sort of error there - some of the documents are just the contents pages of the legislation, basically. And, again, what's the point of including all that in a submission to the council - I'm pretty sure the council has access to the legislation they've been regulating the trade with since 1982

...as well as the council's own conditions of licence

The document linked to at the end is a list of some articles and cases involving Uber in the past, both under UK jurisdictions and globally. Again, most of this is historical, so although superficially impressive, I suspect it will have little clout with the council.

Strangest one is a link to the Uber employment status case in the Supreme Court. I mean, hello?

Maybe be careful what you're drawing attention to...

But perhaps the most obvious example of maybe leading people up to the top of the hill without obvious rationale is the mass submission of the same objection letter - already pushing 400 submissions, I think, so will very probably breeze past 500, or maybe even closer to 1,000.

So to that extent very impressive again

But, in simple terms, it's not a popularity contest. In hard legal terms, it shouldn't make a blind bit of difference if one such letter is submitted, or 1,000. If the substantive legal case is made, then it doesn't matter how many people have supported that. If the legal case isn't made, then it wouldn't matter if a million people had submitted the letter.

On the other hand, while presumably the legal advice to counciillors would be to ignore the numbers and strength of feeling, councillors don't have to follow that advice, and we all know about the imperfections and political dimension to quasi-judicial decision-making.

(And if councillors didn't approve the application, presumably Uber would appeal, but who knows about that?)

Anyway, it's obviously all very detailed and intricate, so no point banging on on here about stuff that none of us really know the details of. (For example, I've never even read Fife Council's conditions for booking offices in one of the links at the bottom, which are unbelievably brief and without much detail...)

And I'm not trying to poo-poo it all anyway, obviously, and just trying to be realistic about EFTA's chances...

SCHEDULE 1 LICENSING—FURTHER PROVISIONS AS TO THE GENERAL SYSTEM (PDF)

But that link EFTA included does seem to be the substantive legislation in full. But that's the *procedural* stuff for the granting and suspensions of licenses etc. A quick look at that demonstrates how complex and messy it can all be. Apart from when it's a lost cause, and open and shut case, that is

So my intention to write down a few brief comments above quickly grew into nearly 800 words

And that was after dumping around half-a-dozen smilies

Maybe I should have taken the Sussex approach - he sums it up nicely in very few words

Was thinking about this over the weekend - currently over 600 objections in the form of the template letter, and in the normal course of events objectors are invited to attend the relevant meeting to speak and make their case.

But if this is correct then the council will be treating the 600+ template letters as one objection, and none of them will be allowed to speak

Well it would obviously be ridiculous to allow 600+ people to speak in objection, particularly since the 600+ written objections are all identical.

But none of them allowed to speak?

But presumably there will be quite a few objections other than the template ones.

Glad I'm sitting this one out, as per usual

(Craig is the LO, and Steven will be the senior solicitor responsible for planning, licensing etc.)


Open letter to Licensing about how they are intending to treat objections to the Uber application

https://eastfife.scot/2026/02/open-lett ... plication/

Dear Craig and Steven,

We’ve just been informed by one of our members that Licensing is intending to

(1) treat the template objection which has now been completed by 619 individuals as a single objection

(2) not invite all objectors, including none of the template objectors, to address the Committee.

If this is true, please could you supply the legal basis for these decisions.

I would point out that in relation to (1) planning objections that use a template are all treated as individual objections.

In relation to (2) I would draw your attention to the statement on the notice pinned to the proposed booking office in Rosyth:

“Any objection / representation submitted to the Licensing Team will be copied in full to the applicant. It is likely that the person making the objection / representation will be invited to attend the Regulation & Licensing Committee to speak in support of their objection / representation prior to the application being determined”.

We would appreciate a speedy response to these queries.

Best wishes
James

Spent ages searching for those recruitment ads by our favourite ex-Reform candidates in their taxi guise. Until I realised I'd just posted the links rather than the text I was searching for

Anyway, a while after than the following Facebook post was reposted by them. It's by an associate firm of theirs, and struck me as slightly odd:

(And don't forget these firms have a handful of cars, and are likely to get a couple of driver to respond, if that.)


Note the bit about 'easy job', 'no drama' and 'decent people' (and not to mention the 'proper hours' referring to weekends and into the early hours...).

Not that I'm claiming St Andrews is like Dundee, or even Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes and Dunfermline in Fife

But seemed a bit of an odd thing to say...

And the proof of the pudding, as they say, came a few weeks later, when St Andrews Taxis posted the following similarly odd Facebook recruitment post. But odd for obverse reasons:


Not sure what that's all about, precisely. And maybe they do have better work coming in over the phones. On the other hand, I've seen drivers from both the above firms ranking in St Andrews late at night often enough. And for years and years.

So maybe the latter does have 'better work' etc than the other equivalent local firms. But I can't see how they can secure any 'better work' from the ranks than any of the rest of us.

And they'll certainly do their fare share of the £5 runs from the ranks like the rest of us, and risk the odd daftie getting in. (And in the original Facebook post there's a knife emoji alongside the 'Enjoy being threatened' line.)

But an odd, er, juxtaposition between the two posts, particularly as the two firms seem to have some sort of business association (covering each other's jobs and that sort of thing, I'd guess).

For what it's worth, the posts themselves here:

https://www.facebook.com/eddie.kane.927 ... rR1u2AnRZl

https://www.facebook.com/standrewstaxis ... g3AfAt8SAl