Agenda and draft minutes

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

RESOLVED that a Vice-Chair was not required on this occasion.

Apologies were received from Cllr Karen Walker.

At this point in the meeting declarations of interest are received from Members in any of the agenda items under consideration at the meeting. Members are asked to indicate:

(a) The agenda item number in which they have an interest to declare.

(b) The nature of their interest.

(c) Whether their interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an other interest,  (as defined in Part 2, A and B of the Code of Conduct and Rules for Registration of Interests)

Any Member who needs to clarify any matters relating to the declaration of interests is recommended to seek advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officeror a member of his staff before the meeting to expedite dealing with the item during the meeting.

There were none.

There was none.

There were none.

The minutes of the meeting of 19^th June 2015, were approved as a correct record.

The Team Manager for Licensing and Environmental Protection presented the report. She said that as agreed at the previous meeting the draft Statement of Principles under the Gambling Act 2005 was being set before the Committee after the conclusion of a twelve-week public consultation and before it was presented to Council for approval. This was the third review of the Statement since the Act came into force in 2007. Four responses had been received to the consultation, one from an individual and three from organisations. The responses and comments on them were given in Annex A. She drew attention to paragraph 19 of the Statement, which had been changed after the consultation period to reflect new regulations which come into force from April 2016.

The Chair noted that only a few responses had been received to the consultation, but suggested that this might indicate that the public were generally satisfied with Council policy on gambling. A Member, however, felt that the fact that the consultation took place during the holiday season might have reduced the response rate. The point was made by the Public Protection Team Leader that the extended consultation period of 12 weeks had been given to take account of the holiday period.

It was proposed by the Chair and seconded by Cllr Norton and RESOLVED

1. To note the responses to the consultation exercise and agree that the officer recommendations should be incorporated into the revised Statement of Principles.

2. To recommend that the draft Statement of Principles, provided in Annex B, should be presented to Full Council for adoption.

The Chair thanked officers for an excellent piece of work.

Uber Britannia Ltd

The Chair had requested information about the Council’s grant of a private hire operators’ licence to Uber Britannia Ltd, which had been announced in a Council press notice on 22 September 2015.

The Chair said that he thought there were three aspects to the issue:

1. a summary of the facts;
2. clarification of how the Council’s licensing process worked in this instance;
3. how the Committee could be better kept informed in future.

A briefing note on Uber was circulated to Members. The Team Manager for Licensing and Environmental Protection explained that Uber are a global company that differs from other private hire operators by the fact that customers use the Uber app on their smart phones to make a booking. The app shows where the nearest Uber taxi is located. When a booking is made the customer can see a map showing where the taxi is, a photo of the driver and details of the vehicle on their smart phone. In London there is specific legislation restricting the use of taximeters to Hackney Carriages. The London taxi trade believes that Uber’s use of GPS technology to calculate fares is the equivalent of using a taximeter and that this practice is unlawful. This dispute is being referred to the High Court. There is no such legislation outside of London. A private hire operator have to fulfil a number of criteria in order to be granted a license, one of which is that they must have an operational base in the local authority. Uber have secured such a base in Midsomer Norton. Uber has been granted operator licences in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire subject to standard conditions and without referral to Licensing Committees. Some comments received by Council officers about Uber have suggested that they are using unlicensed drivers and that there is a risk to public safety. This is not the case. Uber is subject to the Council’s standard terms and conditions and drivers and vehicles must be licensed by the Council.

In response to questions from Members officers explained:

• The recent taxi unmet demand survey related only to Hackney Carriages; the number of private hire vehicles is not regulated

• Uber sets its’ own fares; private hire fares are not regulated by the Council

• There seems to have been no significant impact from Uber on the regular taxi trade in other local authority areas where it is operating

• Uber take a 20%  cut of each fare

• Experience in other local authorities areas suggests that Uber will mostly use existing licensed drivers; Uber has undertaken to provide Licensing with regular updates on the drivers’ who work for them

The Chair commented that Uber seemed to have almost devised a means of operating private hire vehicles as though they were Hackney Carriages, which was clever, although could seem confusing in terms of the existing legal framework. Members noted that Uber seemed to offer particular benefits to certain groups of customers, such as women travelling alone at night and customers  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.