Taxi Driver Online

Not difficult to pick holes in procedural stuff like this if you've got even a half-decent lawyer.

But, of course, for those of us who can't afford fancy lawyers, the council will just ignore you. But obviously it's a different kettle of fish for the likes of Uber.

Anyway, despite the procedural thing, would it have made a blind bit of difference even if the objectors had been allowed to speak?

Of course not - councillors would have been well aware of the arguments anyway. And the most important point in that regard is that most of them were clearly invalid licensing considerations for the grant of such a licence, such as 'fairness' and the impact on the existing trade

To that extent, if the licence had been denied Uber's lawyers would very probably have successfully appealed


Uber’s Fife bid APPROVED as 400 objections ruled invalid – prompting taxi firm fury

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fi ... s-invalid/

Uber’s application to open a Fife booking office has been granted after more than 400 objections were ruled invalid.

One taxi operator accused Fife Council licensing chiefs of “rank incompetence” after being invited to speak against the bid at a special regulation and licensing committee on Tuesday.

Linda Holt, of St Andrews Taxis, told The Courier: “Something completely scandalous has happened.

“Hundreds of objections to the application were accepted by Fife Council as legitimate.

“They invited 25 of us to speak but before we got the chance, Uber’s solicitor stood up and said the objections were not valid because they were not signed.”

Ms Holt said objections were submitted to the council as long ago as February and no concerns were raised.

“This is a fantastic screw-up by Fife Council,” she said.

“They’re trying to say the onus is on the objectors. It isn’t.

“They accepted the objections as valid and actually invited 25 of us to speak.

“That’s how valid they thought they were.”

‘Taxi operators are disgusted’

Uber Scot Limited applied for a 24/7 licence to operate from Rosyth Business Park.

The company said there is strong demand for the service in Fife.

They described their offering as “a safe, affordable and easy option”.

However, taxi operators and drivers objected on public safety grounds.

In particular, they highlighted issues over driver verification and oversight.

And they questioned whether all drivers operating through the Uber office will be subjected to the same police checks and safeguarding requirements.

However, because there were no valid objections, the application was approved by officers under delegated powers.

Ms Holt said: “There was no discussion by councillors.

“The Uber lawyer ran rings around them and the meeting was shut down.

“It smacks of rank incompetence and operators are disgusted.”

Sam Green, of Methil-based Magnum Taxis, agrees.

He told The Courier: “The outcome for me was always inevitable but it would have been nice to have our voices heard.

“We were told any emails we sent would suffice.

“They shouldn’t have said that if they didn’t know. They should have checked.

“Now it’s been granted on the grounds there was no objection.”

‘We looked at every option’

Regulation and licensing committee convener Tom Adams confirmed all of the objections were ruled invalid.

He said the requirements were stated clearly on an application notice posted outside the Rosyth office nine months ago.

Mr Adams said he felt sorry for those who wanted to speak.

"They’ve taken time off to speak to their objections and we’ve just shut them down,” he said.

“However, we took quite a long recess to look at every option.

“The legal advice was we couldn’t consider them without signatures.

“That meant I had to move we couldn’t take the objections and there was no point in us hearing any further.”

Fife Council’s head of legal and democratic services Lindsay Thomson said: “Today the application by Uber for a taxi booking office was granted by Fife Council.

“There was a procedural discussion at the start of the committee meeting, and the taxi licensing team will reflect on whether any changes to the process are required in future.”

That's some quote right at the end there - just about sums things up. But the tip of a very large iceberg

The first piece predominantly quotes Linda Holt, the co-proprietor of St Andrews Taxis. But it doesn't mention that she and her husband also led the charge against Uber via the East Fife Taxi Association, which organised the main petition thingy (and who obviously didn't notice the procedural necessity that the objections needed to be signed ).

Anyway, the EFTA petition thingy attracted lots of signatories from the other Fife zones. And this article is centred around the trade from elsewhere in Fife - this one's on the Dunfermline Press website:


Fife taxi driver wants council committee to be sacked over Uber row

https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/2 ... -uber-row/

A FIFE taxi operator has called for a committee of councillors to be dismissed after more than 400 objections to an Uber taxi application were thrown out.

Fife Council’s Regulation and Licensing Committee ruled out a total of 431 representations against Uber Scot Ltd’s application for a taxi operating office in Rosyth as they were branded invalid.

Councillors had been told by solicitor Kevin Clancy, who was acting for Uber, that none of the objections which had been published in council papers were competent.

At a meeting on Tuesday morning, he explained that under legislation, they needed to specify the grounds of the objection, specify the names and addresses of objections and be signed.

Council solicitor Kimberley Langley confirmed none of the submissions had been signed by hand or electronically.

Following a lengthy recess, committee convener Councillor Tom Adams moved that the objections should be disregarded which resulted in the application going through unopposed.

Kevin Hopgood, 69, from Coastal Cabs in Kirkcaldy, attended the meeting and was furious that they had been refused the chance to express their view.

“What happened today was disgusting,” he said. “What happened there was not democracy. We should have been given the opportunity to resubmit and put it on hold.

“It is dictatorish. I think the council members should be dismissed – all of them, the whole shooting match. That was their mistake and we paid the price for it.”

He said their concerns included public safety and that the premises were not suitable or convenient.

“From the beginning, the application should have been refused and the council let it carry on,” he added.

“When they say your objection had been rejected, that should have been long before. Without having the opportunity to speak how do you get the message across?”

Subhaan Ali, from Mushy Cabs in Dunfermline, was frustrated that they weren’t able to make their point.

“We understand they (Uber) are coming but the council doesn’t seem to have our back – we are just asking for it to be fair all the way round,” he said.

“We cannot go to Glenrothes or Kirkcaldy to pick guys up- those guys shouldn’t be able to do it either. We have not been given the opportunity to bring these things up.

“We didn’t get to say our piece. We knew it was coming, we knew we could try and stop it. More likely they would have got it regardless but the fact they said our objections are not valid – they had time to review the objections.

“When we all did objections, they are saying they are not valid – they should have let us know or given us a bit of time and delay it.

“They didn’t give us a chance to explain.”

With many taxi drivers taking time out of their schedule to attend the meeting, Mr Ali said verbal objections could have been made.

He added: “We were there. The fact that the objections were not heard and we were dismissed like children and could not say anything, it doesn’t seem fair.

“This has shown the council are not on our side. They are not really wanting to hear us out.”

Anwar Ul Haq, from Ash Cabs in Dunfermline, said the outcome was “a let-down”.

“We were not expecting this,” he said. “Fife Council has let us down.

“They took the objections and we got an email saying they had received it. We presumed it was ok.”

Fife Council has been approached for comment.

A bit more here on the procedural angle


Uber office in Fife approved after 400 rejections thrown out

https://www.thenational.scot/news/26571 ... ns-thrown/

[...]However, solicitor Kevin Clancy, acting for Uber Scotland Ltd, put a halt to proceedings within minutes when he said none of the objections were valid.

“All of the objections that have been circulated are, legally speaking, not valid and incompetent,” he stated.

He explained that under legislation, those making representations needed to specify the grounds of the objection, specify the names and addresses of objections and be signed.

Council solicitor Kimberley Langer provided her view on the position.

“I can confirm that none of the objections received were signed by hand or electronically. None have been electronically signed, other than a printed name,” she said.

“My legal opinion is that there are no competent objections and the objections are not competent in terms of legislation.”

A lengthy recess took place while councillors discussed the position and the committee returned with convener, Councillor Tom Adams, moving that the application proceeds.

“I will put forward a motion under the legal advice we have been given that we cannot take these objections therefore there being no further objections,” he said.

“Because there are no objections, the application would have been dealt with under delegated powers and it would never have come in front of us in the first place.”

His motion was seconded by Councillor Donald Lothian and the application was approved.

Presumably it's 1(d) below that's not been adhered to.

And, I mean, what does the requirement that it need to be 'in writing' even mean? I always assume that in the modern context 'in writing' also includes emails etc. But, you know, if someone wants to pick holes in stuff like that...

This was the speech intended to be delivered by EFTA's James Glen.

And which is very good, to be fair

Problem is, maybe, that if you want to get into this kind of stuff then you have to be careful when looking in the mirror. Or something like that

And the zonal thing is interesting, and to be honest it's not a thing I've ever looked into, apart from with regard to HCs plying for hire, which is self-evident.

But, in brief, if in Scotland Uber can't station cars plated by one council in another council area on an ongoing basis, does that also apply to the Fife zones? EFTA certainly seems to think it does

And if Uber can't do that under the Fife Council system, I wonder if that's the kind of thing that's ripe for legal challenge?

...like when the council invited HCs from other zones (via email) into the East zone for the last day of the Open Golf Championship


EFTA Statement on Uber’s Fife Booking Office Application

https://eastfife.scot/2026/09/efta-stat ... plication/

t today’s Regulation and Licensing Committee, EFTA attended prepared to address Uber Scot Limited’s application for a booking office licence in Rosyth. Following a challenge to the validity of the objections, the committee did not hear our prepared representations. We believe the substantive questions raised still deserve to be heard. This is the statement James Glen had prepared to deliver on behalf of the East Fife Taxi Association:

Thank you convener and committee members for allowing me to speak.

My name is James Glen, and I submitted a formal objection to this application on behalf of the East Fife Taxi Association.

Our objection is not about competition or technology. It concerns a fundamental question: if this licence is granted, can Fife Council effectively regulate the operation?

We have raised concerns under the statutory grounds in Schedule 1 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. These include whether the applicant is a fit and proper person; whether the activity will, in substance, be managed by or carried on for the benefit of another entity; whether the premises are suitable; and whether effective local regulation and public-safety safeguards will exist.

The legal question is whether Unit 18 is suitable premises from which the licensed booking office can genuinely operate and be effectively regulated. That requires an identifiable, locally regulated operator with booking, vehicle and driver records available for inspection.

Who will actually be present at Unit 18, and when will it be staffed? Can Fife Council or Police Scotland arrive unannounced and inspect the complete booking record? Or is Unit 18 merely an address, with the operation controlled elsewhere?

Uber’s own published information identifies Uber BV in the Netherlands and Uber Technologies in the United States, not Uber Scot Limited, as controlling the underlying data. Its guidance directs regulatory and law-enforcement correspondence to Amsterdam, without a published Scotland-specific route or guaranteed response time.

Fife’s condition requires records to be available “at any reasonable time”. Uber must demonstrate what that means in practice.

Is it five minutes, five hours or five days? Who can retrieve the information and can Uber Scot Limited obtain it directly, or must another Uber company provide it? Is there a binding arrangement requiring prompt cooperation with Fife Council and Police Scotland?

These are not hypothetical concerns. In evidence submitted to the UK Parliament in 2025, Uber acknowledged that information-sharing with some licensing authorities depended upon delayed email communications and that, in certain circumstances, it was unable to share complaints concerning safety incidents.

The committee must also consider Fife’s zonal licensing system.

The Council’s own correspondence shows that licensing officers told Uber they would need to be convinced its systems and algorithms were configured so prohibited cross-zonal hires could not occur.
Uber responded that it would investigate and might provide an appendix explaining how its technology worked.

The Council itself recognised that compliance cannot simply be presumed. It depends upon an algorithm Fife Council does not control.

Has that explanation been supplied and has the system been independently tested? Can council officers audit it? What happens when mapping or software changes? Can Uber demonstrate from actual records that a vehicle licensed in one zone cannot be offered a journey taking place entirely within another? An assurance that “the system will prevent it” is not evidence. The committee needs a verifiable mechanism and an enforceable commitment.

There is also the question of local management.

The application names a day-to-day manager who, under Fife’s arrangements, becomes a joint licence-holder.

The committee should establish where that person normally works, how frequently they will be present in Rosyth, what authority they possess, whether they can access complete booking records, and whether they can intervene immediately where a licensing or public-safety issue arises.

If the meaningful decisions, booking systems, data and regulatory functions are controlled by other companies elsewhere, the committee must ask whether Uber Scot Limited will genuinely manage this booking office or whether the activity will, in substance, be carried on for the benefit of another entity.

Other councils may have licensed Uber, but that does not relieve this committee of its responsibility. Fife has its own zonal licensing system. These premises, the management arrangements and the Council’s ability to enforce its conditions must be assessed on the evidence before this committee.

Our objection asks members not to confuse a locally licensed address with locally accountable control.

Before granting this application, the committee must be satisfied that Unit 18 will be a genuine operational booking office; that its manager will exercise meaningful control; that complete records can be produced promptly; that Police Scotland and council officers will have effective access to safety information; and that Uber’s technology will reliably enforce Fife’s licensing zones.

If Uber cannot demonstrate those matters through documents, tested systems and enforceable commitments, the premises cannot safely be regarded as suitable for the nature and extent of the proposed activity.

The burden is on the applicant to satisfy the committee, not on Fife’s taxi trade or the public to discover afterwards that the Council’s powers exist only on paper.

I therefore ask the committee to uphold our objection and refuse the application. At the very least, it should not determine the application until these questions have been answered fully, independently and on the public record.

James Glen's other half, both in the domestic and business sense

Like the above, this is also very good. At least at a rhetorical level, and ignoring what happens with the legacy trade on the ground in the likes of St Andrews


What Linda Holt Intended to Say to Fife Council About Uber

https://eastfife.scot/2026/09/what-lind ... bout-uber/

At today’s Regulation and Licensing Committee, Linda Holt was prepared to address members on the regulatory and public-safety issues raised by Uber Scot Limited’s application for a booking office licence in Fife. She was not permitted to deliver her statement. We are therefore publishing it in full:

Convener, members of the committee, thank you for allowing me to speak.

My name is Linda Holt. I am one of the named signatories to the shorter objection submitted by members of the East Fife Taxi Association.

I want to concentrate on one question:

What does Uber’s actual regulatory record tell us about the risks of placing public safety in the hands of its systems?

Uber will tell the committee that it is a sophisticated international technology company, that its systems are safe and that it already holds licences elsewhere.

But size, technology and licences granted by other authorities are not substitutes for compliance in Fife.

The most important evidence comes from Transport for London—Britain’s largest and best-resourced taxi and private-hire regulator.

In 2019, TfL refused to renew Uber London’s licence after a change to Uber’s systems allowed unauthorised drivers to upload their photographs to other drivers’ accounts. Those drivers could then collect passengers while appearing in the app to be the driver who had been booked.

This happened on at least 14,000 journeys.

That was not a paperwork technicality. It defeated one of the principal safety protections on which the entire app-based model depends.

There was then an internal Uber audit. The subsequent court judgment records that the audit missed another 13 bogus drivers. Uber’s own witness described what had happened as “a disaster”.

While Uber later made substantial improvements and regained its London licence, this demonstrates that sophisticated automated systems can fail, and Uber’s own internal checks may also fail to discover the full extent of the problem.

This is not ancient history.

TfL’s official decision on Uber’s 2024 licence renewal records approximately 318 breaches during the preceding licence period, affecting 85,340 completed passenger journeys.

TfL attributed the failures to a wrongly applied global systems update, other IT problems and human error.

These failures reveal the danger of global technological changes overriding local regulatory requirements. TfL considered that risk serious enough to require a “hard block”, preventing global changes from being introduced in London until they had passed local compliance testing.

So will Fife have an equivalent safeguard?

Who in Fife will test every significant change to Uber’s systems before it goes live? Who will know whether a global update has weakened vehicle, driver or geographical checks? Will Fife Council even be told before such a change is implemented?

London has specialist compliance officers, extensive data access, independent assurance reports and bespoke licence conditions. It examined approximately 6,000 booking records during Uber’s 2024 pre-licensing inspection.

TfL found hundreds of breaches affecting tens of thousands of journeys. It renewed Uber’s licence for 30 months rather than the maximum five years and retained extensive conditions so that compliance could continue to be closely monitored.

While this application is from Uber Scot Limited, not Uber London Limited, the point is Uber’s businesses rely on the same technology, processes and corporate systems.

Failures resulting from global software changes, central document processing and weaknesses in internal auditing, are plainly relevant to the assurances now being offered in Fife.

Compliance must be demonstrated before this licence is granted—not just promised, assumed or reconstructed after something has gone wrong.

The committee should require independent technical evidence, a complete compliance plan, advance notification of material system changes, prompt reporting of every breach and a clear right for Fife officers to audit the relevant systems and records.

If Fife Council cannot realistically enforce these safeguards, it is failing in its statutory responsibilities.

I therefore ask the committee to uphold my objection and refuse the application. At the very least, it should not grant the licence unless and until Uber has demonstrated—in evidence and through enforceable conditions—that Fife will receive protections comparable to those TfL considered necessary in London.

Thank you

Of course, what's sauce for the goose...

Again, it's getting down the granular detail of all the procedural and process stuff.

Which is all very well, I suppose, if Uber's going down the same route.


EFTA Seeks Urgent Clarification from Fife Council

https://eastfife.scot/2026/09/efta-seek ... e-council/

Following today’s Regulation and Licensing Committee meeting, EFTA has written to Committee Convener Cllr Tom Adams and Fife Council’s Tom Brown seeking urgent clarification of the decision to treat all 431 objections to Uber Scot Limited’s application as invalid.

We have also asked that the application is not determined under delegated powers until the legal position concerning electronically submitted objections has been considered and clarified.

Our email is reproduced below in full:


Dear Cllr Adams and Mr Brown,

Fife Council received 431 objections to this application. Each objector’s name and postal address was supplied within the email submitted to the Council. Those submissions were received and treated by the Council as objections.

At today’s committee meeting, Uber challenged their validity on the basis of the requirements in paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 1 to the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. Fife Council’s legal representative conceded that point, the committee declined to permit the objectors to address the issue, and subsequently resolved that there were no objections, with the consequence that the substantive application will now be determined under delegated powers.

The objections were submitted electronically. Paragraph 16A of Schedule 1 specifically regulates electronic communications and paragraph 16A(3)(b) provides for the statutory signature requirement to be satisfied electronically.

Before any delegated determination of Uber Scot Limited’s application takes place, please confirm whether paragraph 16A was considered by Legal Services before the concession was made to the committee, and provide the Council’s paragraph 16A determination, including the means of authentication specified by Fife Council for objections submitted electronically.

Given that the finding that there were no objections is the basis upon which the application is now proceeding under delegated powers, we request that no delegated determination be made until this issue has been considered and clarified.

Yours sincerely

James Glen

Councillors have to decide on the report given to them by officers; they can't take account of ramblings from the trade unless they are merely conforming or agreeing with what's in the report.

_________________
IDFIMH

The onus is on the objector to object within the law.

Maybe officials should have pointed out this error; maybe the official who didn't know diddly squat about operating law should have, but the fault lies with the objectors, no one else.

_________________
IDFIMH

So basically the council's legal advisor is saying that no one at the council knew the law until Uber's solicitor pointed it out to them.

Clueless, absolutely clueless.

_________________
IDFIMH

But you can digitally sign emails.

It's also worth pointing out that Uber has only asked/required Fife Council to adhere to their own rules.

_________________
IDFIMH

Don't wish to sound like a Uber apologist, which I most certainly am not, but my local LOs tell me that Uber is by far the best operator to deal with in respect of making records available.

_________________
IDFIMH

Nor should it.

However, should Uber breach any of the local licensing requirements, they will be dealt with no matter what bloody algorithms they use.

_________________
IDFIMH

A bit more here about the signature stuff, and what the council had apparently told people

Not sure if there's any mileage in the claim by Linda Holt that the committee could have used their discretion and heard the objections anyway. But, I mean, the arguments are well-rehearsed by now (and the fine details way beyond the knowledge of licensing councillors), so would it really have made any difference?

If the opposing arguments were considered to have merit, wouldn't the application be rejected under delegated powers anyway?

(A few spelling and/or grammar errors here, but not difficult to work out what's being said )


Fife taxi group seeks review after 400 Uber objections

https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/2 ... bjections/

A TAXI association has written to Fife Council demanding “urgent clarification” about a decision to disregard over 400 objections to an Uber licence application.

The East Fife Taxi Association (EFTA) wants the legal position on electronically submitted objections looked at after the a decision by the local authority’s Regulations and Licensing Committee saw 431 objections thrown out.

Councillors had been told by solicitor Kevin Clancy, who was acting for Uber, that none of the objections which has been published in council papers were competent.

He explained that under legislation, they needed to specify the grounds of the objection, specify the names and addresses of objections and be signed.

Council solicitor Kimberley Langley confirmed none of the submissions had been signed by hand or electronically and the committee later moved to disregard the objections which resulted in the application going through unopposed.

The letter from EFTA has called for the issue to be looked into.

It states: “Given that the finding that there were no objections is the basis upon which the application is now proceeding under delegated powers, we request that no delegated determination be made until this issue has been considered and clarified.”

EFTA secretary Linda Holt slammed the decision not to hear the objections.

She said one Leven taxi operator had been told over the phone by the council’s licensing department that electronic submissions were fine.

“Fife Council never said anything about signatures. They didn’t know about signatures which is why they accepted over 400 objections and invited 25 objectors today to speak,” she said.

“It is completely outrageous. The bottom line is the Uber lawyers ran rings around Fife Council.

“I think Fife Council is frightened of the deep pockets that Uber has. They were always going to cave in. They have not protected the people of Fife.

“It should have been done democratically. We were denied that democratic voice.”

Ms Holt believes the committee should have applied discretion to their decision.

“There should have been proper consideration by the committee and councillors should have been making the decision after they had listened to their constituents,” she continued.

“We have written a letter to the council. We think they could have argued the point about electronic signatures. Fife Council could have argued that they had discretion to accept signed emails like they do for planning. You send in an email for planning applications.

“Councillors were really pleased to be let off the hook from making a decision.”

Ms Holt, who is one of the owners of St Andrews taxi firm, acknowledged some Fifers were keen to see an Uber service in the Kingdom.

“Some people want Uber, who see it as a cheap fare,” she added. “It is not. It starts off cheap and then they ratch up the prices once they have destroyed the competition.

“They could have said we don’t think these objections are valid but let’s have a discussion. People have up their time, they have up work and pay to be treated like that.”