Housing and Public Protection Committee POLICY FOR HACKNEY CARRIAGE VEHICLE LICENCES.

Bath & North East Somerset Council

MEETING:

Housing and Public Protection Committee

AGENDA
ITEM
NUMBER

MEETING DATE:

23 November 2000

REPORT AUTHOR:

Andrew Jones

Environmental Monitoring and Licensing

01225 477557

RESPONSIBLE OFFICER:

Howard Nowell

Head of Environmental and Consumer Services

01225 477502

TITLE:

POLICY FOR HACKNEY CARRIAGE VEHICLE LICENCES.

WARD:

ALL

BACKGROUND PAPERS: Report to Housing and Public Protection Committee: - Policy for hackney carriage licensing, 16 May 2000.

Report to full Council:- Policy for hackney carriage licensing, 25 May 2000

AN OPEN PUBLIC ITEM

1 SUMMARY

1.1 This report is to seek the Committee's guidance on the number of hackney carriages operating in Zone 1 (Bath).

1.2 This report was first considered by the Housing and Public Protection Committee at the meeting of the 16^th May 2000, when the report was referred to the full Council. The Council required officers to bring a further report to the Housing and Public Protection Committee detailing options for the allocation of hackney carriage vehicle licences within B&NES including the possibility of a bidding process or deregulation and that there be active consultation with the trade as to their preferred option.

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 That the Committee determines which, from the following options, is their preferred means of dealing with hackney carriage licensing:-

2.1.1 A notice is placed in the Bath Chronicle and/or Western Daily Press requesting expressions of interest from those wishing to be granted a hackney carriage vehicle licence and advising interested parties where they can obtain a copy of the current conditions.

An appropriate closing date for those expressions of interest is specified in the notice.

That there is no requirement for the expression of interest to be accompanied by a vehicle registration document or insurance; so as to not to cause unnecessary expense to those who are not successful.

Applicants will be issued with a receipt, the number of which would be placed in a draw to be carried out by the Licensing Sub-Committee.

A list of applications received would be available for inspection prior to the draw taking place so as to enable applicants to check that their application has been received and processed by the Council.

2.1.2 That zone 1 is deregulated therefore, removing the need for a policy.

3 RESOURCE AND CORPORATE POLICY IMPLICATIONS (WHERE NECESSARY, THE VIEWS OF THE COUNCIL'S STATUTORY OFFICERS ARE REFLECTED IN THE COMMENTS BELOW)

3.1 Financial: None arising directly from this report.

3.2 Staffing: None arising directly from this report.

3.3 Equalities: None arising directly from this report.

3.4 Economic: None arising directly from this report.

3.5 Environment: None arising directly from this report.

3.6 Council Wide Impacts: None arising directly from this report.

4 LEGAL FRAMEWORK

4.1 Bath and North East Somerset Council licences hackney carriages under the provisions of the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 and the Local Government Act (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, as amended.

4.2 A hackney carriage, in order to be entitled to operate requires a licence granted by the Council under Section 37 of the Town Police Clauses Act 1847. This is known as a hackney carriage proprietors licence or a hackney carriage vehicle licence.

4.3 Section 40 of the 1847 Act requires the proprietor or proprietors to sign a requisition for the licence. The requisition should contain the full name and address of the applicant, together with details of anyone else who is involved in the keeping, employing or letting for hire of the hackney carriage.

4.4 The power to issue licences is discretionary, but the only certain ground on which the licence can be refused is that there is no significant demand, which remains unmet.

4.5 By virtue of Section 16 of the Transport Act 1985, the local authority has the power to limit the number of hackney carriages within its area, but only if it is satisfied that there is no significant unmet demand for hackney carriage services. From time to time the Council arranges for an independent survey to be carried out to establish whether or not there is any significant demand which remains unmet.

5 BACKGROUND

5.1 Historically, Bath City Council regulated the number of hackney carriage licences, which could operate within the authority. Wansdyke District Council did not regulate the number of licences within its district.

5.2 On the formation of Bath and North East Somerset Council the issue of regulation was considered and it was resolved that two zones should be created, with the same boundaries as the previous local authorities, and that the hackney carriage licences in Zone 1 would be regulated and Zone 2 would remain de-regulated. This policy was to be reviewed after 2-3 years.

5.3 In November 1998, consultants were employed by Bath and North East Somerset Council to carry out an independent review of the zoning system as well as carrying out a survey to establish whether there was any significant demand for hackney carriage services, which remained unmet.

5.4 The survey carried out in relation to Zone 1 (Bath) in 1998/99 indicated that there was no significant unmet demand in relation to hackney carriage services.

5.5 In September 1999, a report was put to the Housing and Public Protection Committee entitled "Review of the Taxi service within the Bath and North East Somerset area". This report concluded that the two zone system should remain and that zone 1 (Bath) should continue to be regulated. It was resolved, at the committee meeting, to accept the conclusions and recommendations of the report. . Interested parties such as potential hackney carriage vehicle operators are thus aware that the Council is likely to refuse any applications for licences for vehicles if the result would be for there to be more than 89 hackney carriage vehicles operating.

5.6 One of the conditions currently attached to hackney carriage vehicle licences is that all hackney carriage plates remain the property of the Council and shall be returned to the Council on expiry or within seven days of any notice of suspension, revocation or refusal to renew the licence. From time to time there is also the possibility that plates may be returned to the Council for some other reason.

5.7 Options on how any further hackney carriages might be licensed are limited. Any policy would need to be fair to all applicants. Applicants would need to be aware of the conditions they would need to comply with if their application were to be successful.

5.8 The options available to the Council are as stated in paragraphs 5.9, 5.11 and 5.12.

5.9 A notice is placed in the Bath Chronicle and/or Western Daily Press requesting expressions of interest from those wishing to be granted a hackney carriage vehicle licence and advising interested parties where they can obtain a copy of the current conditions.

An appropriate closing date for those expressions of interest is specified in the notice.

Applicants will be issued with a receipt, the number of which would be placed in a draw to be carried out by the Licensing Sub-Committee.

5.10 In the event that there was only one available licence, in law the effect of this is that the Council will say to one only of the applicants that they will be granted a licence for a suitable vehicle and that all other applications will be refused. Such refusals would need to be on the basis that, with the additional licensed hackney carriage there is no significant demand for hackney carriage services, which remains unmet. Such a view would need to be justified by admissible evidence in the event of an appeal against refusal. Whether this method of selection would withstand judicial or other scrutiny, given the fact that the Council is not obliged to refuse any applications solely on the basis of a quota is open to question.

5.11 That zone 1 is deregulated therefore, removing the need for a policy.

· The issue of deregulation was considered by the Housing and Public Protection Committee at the meeting in September 1999 where a consultant's report concluded that zone 1 should continue to be regulated. It was resolved at the committee to accept the conclusions and recommendations of the consultant's report.

· Appendix C considers the possible effects of partial and full deregulation.

· If members were minded to recommend deregulation then the trade would need to be consulted. The committee could recommend that officers investigate this possibility and report back to the Housing and Public Protection Committee. Officers could also consider restricting the type of licence.

5.12 That the applicants bid for the licences.

· Legal advice has been taken on this proposal and the advice given is that this option is not available to the Council.

5.13 In the event that members decide to deregulate or to increase the number of licences available a policy will be required in the interim to deal with any licences which are returned to the Council. Officers believe that the policy put forward in this report represents a fair method of dealing with this situation as all applicants have an equal chance.

6 CONSULTATION

6.1 This report has not been sent to Trades Unions because there are no staffing issues

6.2 The hackney carriage proprietors in zone 1 and zone 2 and the hackney carriage/ private hire drivers were all consulted on this issue. A copy of the letter sent to the proprietors and the drivers is shown in Appendix A. A summary of the replies received to questions a - d, from the questionnaire, are shown in Appendix B. A list of the comments received from the questionnaire has been provided separately as the list is too long to contain in the report. Copies of the replies received have been placed in the members' rooms.

Document4

This version was printed 02-Nov-00 6:29

APPENDIX A

Consultation on allocation of hackney carriage vehicle licenses in zone one.

Proprietor(s);

Vehicle Plate No.

Please state your preferred options for the processes of allocation of hackney carriage vehicle licenses in zone one: -

Preferred Option

Please Tick _

a)

That the number of hackney carriages in zone 1 be reduced to 88.

Yes

No

b)

That should the number of licences, within zone 1, fall below 89 then an advert is placed in the local paper inviting applications. That all applicants are issued with a receipt the number of which will be placed in a draw to be carried out by the Licensing Sub Committee.

Yes

No

c)

That zone 1 is deregulated therefore removing the need for a policy.

Yes

No

d)

That applicants bid for the licences

Yes

No

If you have any different suggestions to those above then please state below: -

............................................................................................................

....................................................continue on the reverse of this form if required

Signed; .................................................................................................

Date; .........................................

APPENDIX B

Summary of the replies to the consultation exercise for the allocation of vacant hackney carriage plates in zone 1.

Zone 1 Owners (Bath).

Question

Yes

No

a) No of taxis to be reduced to 88.

4

25

b) Draw to be carried out by the Licensing Sub-Committee.

24

9

c) That zone 1 is deregulated.

0

31

d) That applicants bid for licences.

12

18

Zone 2 Owners (North East Somerset).

Question

Yes

No

a) No of taxis to be reduced to 88.

1

8

b) Draw to be carried out by the Licensing Sub-Committee.

1

8

c) That zone 1 is deregulated.

13

1

d) That applicants bid for licences.

0

9

All Drivers (hackney and private hire in both zones)

Question

Yes

No

a) No of taxis to be reduced to 88.

15

87

b) Draw to be carried out by the Licensing Sub-Committee.

71

42

c) That zone 1 is deregulated.

80

53

d) That applicants bid for licences.

21

80

APPENDIX C

Comparison of possible options for regulating/deregulating the number of hackney carriage vehicles in Zone 1.

ACTION

COMMENT

Zone 1 remains regulated

Limitation of taxi numbers can have many undesirable effects - an insufficiency of taxis, either generally or at particular times or in particular places, insufficient competition between the providers of taxi services to the detriment of their customers and prices for the transfer of taxi licences from one person to another which imply an artificial restriction of supply.

The consultant's report in July 1999 concluded that hackney and private hire operations appear to be well balanced and are meeting a significant part of the market for their respective areas and that there are sufficient hackneys in zone 1 (para. 6.33).

Paragraph 6.34 of the report also states that " the study finds no evidence of any significant unmet demand for the service of hackney carriages.

Partial deregulation of Zone 1.

The decision to issue further licences could, whilst stemming any legal challenge from those wishing to obtain hackney carriage vehicle licences, lead to a test of the "significant unmet demand" (SUD) estimation by current owners. Any identification of SUD must therefore be as robust as possible within the confines of other restricting parameters, irrespective to the pressures leading to the study.

Complete deregulation of Zone 1.

The decision to deregulate zone 1 completely could lead to possible legal challenge form the existing proprietors. The Council would have to be totally satisfied that their decision to deregulate is robust and that there is significant unmet demand and that total deregulation is the only answer.

The total abandonment of regulation could lead to an initial over-supply of taxis before market forces could bring about an equilibrium between supply and demand.


Bath & North East Somerset Council
MEETING:		Housing and Public Protection Committee	AGENDA ITEM NUMBER
MEETING DATE:		23 November 2000
REPORT AUTHOR:		Andrew Jones Environmental Monitoring and Licensing 01225 477557
RESPONSIBLE OFFICER:		Howard Nowell Head of Environmental and Consumer Services 01225 477502

TITLE:	POLICY FOR HACKNEY CARRIAGE VEHICLE LICENCES.
WARD:	ALL
BACKGROUND PAPERS: Report to Housing and Public Protection Committee: - Policy for hackney carriage licensing, 16 May 2000. Report to full Council:- Policy for hackney carriage licensing, 25 May 2000
AN OPEN PUBLIC ITEM


		Preferred Option Please Tick _
a)	That the number of hackney carriages in zone 1 be reduced to 88.	Yes	No
b)	That should the number of licences, within zone 1, fall below 89 then an advert is placed in the local paper inviting applications. That all applicants are issued with a receipt the number of which will be placed in a draw to be carried out by the Licensing Sub Committee.	Yes	No
c)	That zone 1 is deregulated therefore removing the need for a policy.	Yes	No
d)	That applicants bid for the licences	Yes	No

Question	Yes	No
a) No of taxis to be reduced to 88.	4	25
b) Draw to be carried out by the Licensing Sub-Committee.	24	9
c) That zone 1 is deregulated.	0	31
d) That applicants bid for licences.	12	18

ACTION	COMMENT
Zone 1 remains regulated	Limitation of taxi numbers can have many undesirable effects - an insufficiency of taxis, either generally or at particular times or in particular places, insufficient competition between the providers of taxi services to the detriment of their customers and prices for the transfer of taxi licences from one person to another which imply an artificial restriction of supply. The consultant's report in July 1999 concluded that hackney and private hire operations appear to be well balanced and are meeting a significant part of the market for their respective areas and that there are sufficient hackneys in zone 1 (para. 6.33). Paragraph 6.34 of the report also states that " the study finds no evidence of any significant unmet demand for the service of hackney carriages.
Partial deregulation of Zone 1.	The decision to issue further licences could, whilst stemming any legal challenge from those wishing to obtain hackney carriage vehicle licences, lead to a test of the "significant unmet demand" (SUD) estimation by current owners. Any identification of SUD must therefore be as robust as possible within the confines of other restricting parameters, irrespective to the pressures leading to the study.
Complete deregulation of Zone 1.	The decision to deregulate zone 1 completely could lead to possible legal challenge form the existing proprietors. The Council would have to be totally satisfied that their decision to deregulate is robust and that there is significant unmet demand and that total deregulation is the only answer. The total abandonment of regulation could lead to an initial over-supply of taxis before market forces could bring about an equilibrium between supply and demand.