Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 The Council Executive resolution establishing its Taxi Policy 2005 included a requirement to conduct a survey to establish the extent of any unmet service demand before reconsideration of whether to continue to limit the number of hackney carriage licences. This report presents the results of the survey and requests the Executive to determine its policy on the number of hackney carriage licences.

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 (i) Note the findings of the consultants report, as summarised in Annex A.

(ii) Consider whether to establish a policy of limiting the number of hackney carriage vehicle licences in zone 1 (Bath) to 108 or to adopt a policy which delimits the number of hackney carriage vehicle licences across the whole of Bath and North East Somerset.

(iii) Recommend that the Licensing Act 2003 Committee, and the Taxi and Private Hire Sub Committee, only accepts fully accessible vehicles for any new application for a hackney carriage vehicle licence and that the criteria for fully accessible vehicles be determined by the Head of Environmental and Consumer Services.

3 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 (i) The cost of future "Unmet Demand" surveys, required to continue with a limitation policy, will be in the region of £10K - £15K. There is no specific budget provision for such surveys.

(ii) The Executive will be advised on the options for creating necessary funding as part of the 2006-2007 budget making process.

(iii) If the decision is taken to continue with a limitation policy then there is the possibility of legal challenge to the decision in the court. At the current time 9 of the 28 applicants, deferred by the Licensing (Taxi & Private Hire) sub Committee, have appealed to the Crown Court for non determination of their application. If a similar challenge is made against refusal of their applications then the decision will have to be defended in the Court, this could cost in the region of £20,000 and the costs would have to be borne from within existing budgets.

(iv) If the decision is taken to delimit the number of taxis then subsequent monitoring of taxi ranks may reveal a need to expand their size or number.

4 THE REPORT

4.1 This section will vary with the issues but should contain all the background information required to enable the Executive member to make a decision.

(i) The Council is the licensing authority for hackney carriages. It has a statutory power to limit the number of hackney carriages that it licences

(ii) Currently hackney carriages are restricted by zone and numbers within the authority. There are two zones which were set up at the time of reorganisation; zone1 has the same boundaries as the former Bath City Council and zone 2 has the same boundaries as the former Wansdyke District Council.

(iii) There is no restriction on the number of hackney carriage licences in zone 2 (North East Somerset). Following a previous survey of unmet demand the approved number of licences in the Bath zone was set at 89 by Council in May 2000.

(iv) In July 2004 the Council received an application for an "additional" hackney carriage licence to the 89 already issued. As legally required, the Regulatory (Licensing) Committee duly considered and decided to grant the application. Since that time the Committee has granted a further 18 applications; accordingly there currently exists 108 hackney carriage licences.

(v) It should be noted that whilst the Council may have a policy which recognises its view that the public interest is best served by a limit on the number of licensed vehicles. It was and remains the responsibility of the relevant committee to determine each application on its individual merits. In doing so it must have regard to the policy but not be exclusively tied thereby.

(vi) At the meeting of the Executive on the 6th April 2005, a report was considered on the adoption of a taxi policy and consideration of delimiting the number of hackney carriage licence numbers in zone 1 (Bath). It was resolved "to hold a survey to establish unmet need and then reconsider within the next year whether any limit should continue to be placed on the number of hackney carriage licences issued in zone 1".

(vii) In May 2005 KNW Consultants were contracted to carry out a hackney carriage unmet demand survey for Bath and North East Somerset Council. The survey was completed at the end of July and a summary of the findings are provided in Annex A.

(viii) In addition to the unmet demand survey the consultants were also contracted to address the requirements specified by the Department for Transport (DfT) for those local authorities who decide to continue with limitation policies. This work included carrying out an extensive consultation exercise, which involved the local hackney carriage and private hire trade, consumers and passenger (including disabled) groups, groups which represent those passengers with special needs, local interest groups i.e. hospitals or visitor attractions, the police, transport stakeholders i.e. rail/bus/coach and Local Transport Plan Officers. In addition, the consultants were asked to determine the number of additional accessible vehicles required to provide parity of service between able bodied and disabled groups.

(ix) In the conclusions of the consultants report, which are summarised in Annex A, it states that there is no current evidence of unmet demand and that the services of the public and local businesses are being met by the current trade

(x) The options available to the Executive are to:

(a) Adopt the recommendations of the consultants to retain the current limitation policy and to keep the number of licences at 108.

(b) To partially delimit. Case law shows that it would be feasible to issue batches of licences at a time which would allow a Council to assess the impact of each tranche and decide when there is significant unmet demand. Such assessments would require additional budgetary provision and may result in periods of uncertainty within the trade and elsewhere.

(c) To delimit altogether. If the Executive decide to delimit altogether then there is the opportunity to ensure that all newly licensed vehicles are fully wheelchair accessible by means of attaching a condition to the licence. It should be noted that Bath and North East Somerset Council has been designated a "first phase" licensing authority in relation to the implementation of the taxi provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The effect of this designation is that all hackney carriages in Bath and North East Somerset must be "fully accessible" from 2010.

(xi) The removal of the current limitation policy could result in a legal challenge from the existing vehicle licence holders, but previous legal challenges to removing limitation policies by local authorities have been unsuccessful.

(xii) The Council has received 28 hackney carriage vehicle licence applications, which have been deferred by the Licensing (Taxi and Private Hire) Sub Committee until the end of September 2005. Nine of the applications have appealed against the deferral to the Crown Court. The court has decided to delay hearing the appeal until after the Executive have made their decision on a limitation policy.

(xiii) Government has recommended to local licensing authorities that a restriction on numbers should only be applied where there is a demonstrable benefit to the consumer and that it would not be in the interest of consumers for market entry to be refused to anyone who meets the application criteria.
Other taxi trade based organisations which favour delimitation are scrutinising councils who continue with limitation policies.

(xiv) Other taxi trade based organisations which favour delimitation are scrutinising councils who continue with limitation policies.

5 RISK MANAGEMENT

6 RATIONALE

6.1 (i) It is considered that the Council's prime objective is to ensure the safety and protection of the public and to maintain an effective and efficient public transport system, of which, taxis form an integral part.

(ii) The Executive need to consider, whether or not, it is in the interest of consumers i.e. residents, visitors and business for the taxi service in Bath to be limited by number.

7 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED

7.1 The options considered are contained within the report.

8 CONSULTATION

8.1 Executive councillor, Other B&NES Services, Local residents, Community Interest Groups, Other public sector bodies, Section 151 Finance Officer, Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer

8.2 A comprehensive consultation exercise has been carried out by the consultants employed to carry out the Unmet Demand survey, which has included the public, local businesses and the taxi and private hire trade. The details of the consultation are contained within the consultants report.

9 REASONS FOR URGENCY

9.1 Not urgent.