Decision details

The Council currently regulates the number of taxi licences in the city of Bath. Because of this the Council is under a duty to carry out a review of any significant unmet demand every three years. This report requests the Cabinet Member to agree three additional hackney carriage licences to satisfy the significant unmet demand which the survey has identified. This matter has already been considered by the Council’s Licensing Committee which has endorsed the recommendation for this number of additional licences.

The Cabinet Member agrees the addition of 3 hackney carriage licences to Zone 1 (former Bath City Council area) to satisfy the significant unmet demand which has been identified in the B&NES Taxi Unmet Demand Survey Report 2014.

Central 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.

The 2014 study has identified that there is evidence of significant unmet demand for hackney carriages in Bath and the limit on the number of licences in Zone 1 should be retained. This is because removing the limit would encourage a high take-up of new licences leading to the public being inconvenienced by high numbers of vehicles causing congestion at ranks and a reduction in the trade focus on customers. This conclusion is based upon an assessment of the implications of case law since 2000 and the analysis contained within the survey.

The options available are:

To partially delimit: Case law demonstrates 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 whether there is significant unmet demand. This option has been rejected as such assessments would require further budget and may result in periods of uncertainty within the trade and elsewhere.

To delimit altogether: This option has been rejected as the unmet demand within Zone 1 (Bath) can be addressed by the addition of three additional licences and the removal of the current limitation policy could result in a legal challenge from the existing vehicle licence holders in light of the findings of the survey.

None.