Taxi Driver Online

At a committee meeting on 4/8/05 Bradford Councillors reached a novel compromise with their hackney carriage license holders.

The taxi trade agreed to convert ten of their existing non-wheelchair vehicles to purpose built wav's each year up to the year 2010, after which all vehicles will have to be wav compliant. At the moment Bradford's Hackney Cabs are mainly saloon type vehicles.

I'm surprised that Bradford have left themselves open to legal challenge by not having a survey of unmet demand. Their last survey was conducted in late 2002 and completed in early 2003.

An extract from a recent report stated that "A study of the provision of taxis in the District was undertaken in late 2002, early 2003 by Halcrow Group Ltd. Their findings were made available in March 2003".

The report to committee was well balanced and could not be faulted so it will be interesting to see what special reasons the councillors give for thinking the public will be best served by limiting numbers?

Most council administrations like to believe that an unmet demand survey study will last at least three years, that is because the market research companies who conduct these studies tell them that. I must impress on everyone that in England and Wales "the Courts have never ever ruled on the time frame of a survey". There are one or two high profile appeal cases scheduled in the coming months which might change that.

Bradford Council has to make their justification for retaining numbers Public but so far very few councils that have retained a policy of quantity control have done that. We shall wait and see what Bradford do in this respect because I have a feeling the DfT will be writing to all these restricted councils asking them "why they haven't made public their reasons for thinking the public are best served by restricting numbers?

Regards

JD

So the big question is, how are the ten to be chosen?

And if all have to be WAVs after 2010 then in effect this means little movent in the meantime (given total numbers in Bradford), then lots of movement thereafter. Therefore it smacks a bit of tokenism.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

A similar agreement was made with the Eastbourne taxi trade a few years ago.

The trade said they would put more WAVs on if the council didn't issue anymore plates.

Guess what? The number of WAVs have since fallen to below the number they had when that offer was made.

What a surprise.

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IDFIMH

oh i bet they will all be rushing to pay the extra 20 grand.
i wonder if the council got that in writing?

The decision in a nut shell was for the trade to replace 10 saloon vehicles with WAVs by 31st Dec 2005, and a further 10 each year thereafter upto 31st Dec 2009 and from 1st Jan 2010 no saloons would be contiuned to be licensed, and should the trade fail to replace the agreed number each year the Council will issue new plates to make up the short.

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LO.

It'll be interesting to see how they choose them, if they haven't already decided, but my guess is that if they haven't decided yet then they won't in future.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

The report presented to the committee as I have already said is one of the better reports to come out of these consultations. I do however feel that there could be a huge problem with the new policy because the person or persons who call themselves the trade, in theory can only speak for those they represent, even then they can't guarantee the people they represent will deliver what the council expects.

These trade spokespersons will certainly not speak for the majority of owners because statistics tell us that a very small percentage of owners actually join trade organisations. When are the first ten licenses being exchanged and who is going to choose the license holders?

Do you think that the council will do as the Government requested and inform the public as to why they decided that limiting numbers is in their BEST interest and also what special circumstances do you think the council will put forward for retaining quantity control?

Regards

JD

Be the first if they do.

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IDFIMH

This year Bradford has found its ten proprietors who agreed to change to a purpose built WAV but Will they find ten next year?

According to their licensing department Bradford now has 21 purpose built WAVs, up from 11 in 2005.

Well done Mr Mills for finding these born again Christians.

Regards


JD

I wonder how these people come forward, and if it's entirely voluntary how the magic number is found so precisely?

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

http://www.national-taxi-association.co ... ession.pdf

CC

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

http://www.national-taxi-association.co ... ession.pdf

CC

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

http://www.national-taxi-association.co ... ession.pdf

CC

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

Instead of repeating the same post three times, wouldn't it be better to point us towards the relevant page, because 90 pages is a bit much for a Tuesday evening

But some interesting stuff in the first couple of pages - interesting the way that Mr Millership talks in terms of the Royal 'we' as if he's part of the restricted numbers furniture rather than independent.

And he also mentions the unfairness of the OFT survey information, so I wonder why he refused to answer questions on his Edinburgh survey

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

I think there were a number of interesting questions at last years conference, however, without going through all of them, the point was raised about the frequency of surveys.

Page 49 & 36/37

CC

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