Taxi Driver Online

‘Bureaucratic madness’ — Fife Council orders Balbirnie House Hotel to remove logo from people carrier




The managing director of a hotel has accused Fife Council of “bureaucratic madness” by forcing him to remove logos from private vehicles.

Nicholas Russell, who runs Balbirnie House Hotel in Markinch, winner of Scotland’s wedding hotel of the year title for eight consecutive years, had to pay to have the hotel’s branding taken off a Mercedes Traveliner bought for the exclusive use of transferring hotel guests.

Regulation and licensing committee chairman Bob Young said the policy applies to all vehicles requiring private hire licences.

“As it is a vehicle which is being used to transport guests, the owners are required by law to have a private hire vehicle licence,” he said.

“The licensing system is all about ensuring customer and driver safety. We have had several discussions with Balbirnie about their application to clarify matters with them.

“It is also made clear within the information given to all applicants applying for private hire car licences that signage is not permitted.

“This policy has been consistently applied to all private hire licence holders and it was felt that it was unfair to make an exception for one firm when all the others abide by these rules.

“Other hotels often use mini buses over eight seats for this purpose and these are covered by different legislation.”

Mr Russell said he was “totally astonished” at the decision and has created an online petition urging Fife Council to change its policy.

“Clearly Balbirnie House’s Mercedes has been a precedent in the decision-making process and this ludicrous decision now exposes all other Fife hotels which operate similar vehicles to remove their logos as well,” he said.

Markinch, Leslie and Glenrothes North councillor John Bear also questioned the council’s decision.

“As this is the year of the Ryder Cup and the Commonwealth Games, we should be making things easier for our visitors and the tourism sector, which brings in some £300 million to the Fife economy and employs some 12,000 people.”

He added: “I have been told this is a ‘safety measure’ to prevent people getting into vehicles they may think are taxis ... but who would confuse a car with a hotel logo for a taxi?

“Frankly, it reads like a kind of bureaucratic madness that gives councils a bad name.”

Mr Beare said he planned to consult with council officials in a bid to change the policy ahead of the next full council meeting.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/ ... r-1.342359

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In fairness they should be more concerned with the number of companies running nice fancy vw transporters and mercs that are not licenced correctly rather than worrying about someone doing it legally with a sticker on the door that identifies the operator and makes life easier for their clients

Fife council shame on you

Not in Scotland it isn't

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Something to hide Trotsky?

Never could understand this article either - I wouldn't have thought that the hotel operator here would have needed to licence his vehicle, thus the signage thing shouldn't be an issue. But there was maybe more to this than was disclosed in the article.

But as another contributor to this thread said:


Indeed, but in fairness to Fife Council, these businesses are just taking advantage of the contract hire exemption which has been in the legislation since it was passed 40 years ago. And which has been reviewed by the Scottish Government, but they saw fit to leave it intact, rightly or wrongly

Wrongly, in my opinion

But there is case law (down here) that kind of put the brakes on these scams (my words), in that you must have a wriiten contract and that must last the length of the exemption (it was 7 days down here), and that a exempted firm could only have one contract per length of that exemption.

In essence the exempted minibus firm couldn't do a golf run-around for one contract, and then do an airport run for another customer in the same 24 hour period.

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IDFIMH

Indeed, but quite difficult to enforce it and to evidence breaches, particularly a 24-hour rule, whereas if it was a 7-day rule it would be easier to demonstrate that it was being abused.

But certainly a lot of such vehicles around here, particularly servicing the golf and tourism markets.

Very much a grey area, and widely abused, I suspect. Could say a lot more, but kind of thing I tried to do something about years ago, but to no avail, so just an issue I simply can't be bothered with these days...

The case was Rout-v-Swallow hotel. Swallow hotel in Kensington was operating a coach as freebie for hotel guests. How was the coach being paid for? Answer, by part of the hotel/restaurant. Therefore it was being used to carry passengers for hire and reward. Yes, it was a PSV, but the same argument has been made for PH and HC operations. Who is paying for the hotel minibus operation? The punters, through the hotel fees. It's hire and reward, the hotel needs to licence it accordingly.

They should get a restricted PSV licence and a 12 seater and stick 2 fingers up at the council.

In respect of the 7 day exemption abuse, the lead case, or the final 'nail in the coffin' case was Crawley v Ovenden 1992.

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IDFIMH