Taxi Driver Online

Berwick licencing to be taken to the the high court in London for a judicial review, page 337 Border text itv

Review over taxi applications
A judicial review is to be heard in the High Court in London into Berwick Borough Council's handling of applications for taxi licensing.

It follows a request by Newcastle City Council, which raised concerns about the Berwick authority dealing with taxi applications outside the borough.

The borough council has approved licences for almost 300 hackney cabs.

It looks like Newcastle council could be on a hiding for nothing here, and it will be there own fault for overcharging for licences in the first place

We missed this story a little while back, which maybe indicates why Newcastle are doing what they are doing.

http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/Cabb ... 3689958.jp

Be a very interesting case to follow, as the outcome (whatever it may be) will have a large effect on 1000s of folks driving cabs.

If anyone could give a hearing date, that would be most appreciated.

_________________
IDFIMH

Presumably, they're talking about 'pre-booked' work? They can't ply for hire outside their own area....Can they?

Your quite right Mr cabbyman, but I suspect some do.

But there is something wrong, IMO, having hackneys working 100s of miles from their licensing area.

_________________
IDFIMH

57 miles exactly and there is £206 nothing wrongs, and as long as they work as PH when they are there they are not breaking any laws, allegedly there is also one working in south Wales

Didn't I see a report somewhere saying that they were working in Wales?

_________________
IDFIMH

So, where are they getting the bookings from?

If the phone number called is local to Newcastle, wouldn't that constitute cross-border trading, which I believe has been the subject of at least one court case? (Beverley in Yorkshire, if memory serves me.)

Isn't this an enforcement issue rather than (or maybe as well as..) a quality of application issue?

The Gladen judgement basically says that hackneys don't need a license to operate (as in receive phone bookings).

Therefore Berwick hackneys can work where they want and use the local booking operator to receive radio work.

It now appears that Newcastle are trying to get the that overturned.

_________________
IDFIMH

The issue for the likes of Newcastle and North Tyneside is that they want to restrict the operation of all licensed vehicles to the authority to which they are licensed. That would be ideal for Liverpool because it would solve the Delta problem in one fell swoop. However it seems to me that desperation is the optimum word here and I have difficulty seeing how a judge is going to tell a licensing authority that they cannot issue anymore vehicle licenses.

The Tyneside councillor cab driver talks about taxis and never once mentions that these vehicles are working as private hire. All of a sudden North Tyneside vehicles and drivers are superior to Berwick. I wonder if this councillor would feel the same way if Berwick vehicles and drivers were superior to North Tyneside?

Regards

JD

_________________
Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.