Agenda item

Tom Ince (Principal Compliance Officer) has prepared the attached Taxi Licensing update as at January 2022 and will give a brief overview at the meeting.

Tom Ince (Principal Compliance Officer) referred to the Taxi Licensing update that was circulated with the Agenda and highlighted the following:

·    The report information was based on the data for January 2022 and at that point the numbers seem to have stabilised and at the end of February there was a small increase in both drivers and vehicles numbers so it was hoped that the corner had been turned – it was definitely a step in the right direction;

·           The team continue to proactively enforce the Council’s policies in relation to taxi licensing, ensuring they have a visible presence on the rank.  Penalty points were issued on 17 occasions during January 2022 with 11 of these points being issued because the drivers badge was not visible.  Drivers need to be clearly identified;

·           The team were seeing some safeguarding issues and there had been involvement with the multi-agency safeguarding hub in relation to this; and

·           The trend for the reduction in hackney carriage drivers was continuing – this was offset by those with private hire vehicles where all of the work is prebooked.  This reflects the change in industry with reduced footfall in towns.  The rank work has dried up and drivers are having to took to secure other contracts to make a living.

Committee Members asked the following:

·           With reference to the drift towards private hire drivers from Hackney carriage drivers – at what point might you look to review the taxi rank provision?  Tom Ince responded that they would always need to review this on a town by town basis and collect more information to decide on what steps if any to take.

·           Do we look at taxi ranks to check that they are in the right location - do we review their appropriateness?  Tom Ince responded that they do not proactively review the ranks but for example in Trowbridge a rank was added near St Stephens Place where the leisure and entertainment areas are now situated.

·           Are there any areas of the county that are poorly served by transportation?  Tom Ince responded that the east of the county has the lowest number of drivers.  The Taxi Provision Working Group have asked for a demand survey to be completed so the demand can be fully established.  DS Morley had suggested earlier in the meeting that there may be an issue with taxi sufficiency for the night time economy and whilst Officers would be looking at the overall provision for Wiltshire, they don’t have any data as yet.

·           How often is the safeguarding training for drivers?  Tom Ince reported that safeguarding training is required before a licence can be issued and then repeated every 3 years.  Drivers are notified of the pending expiry of the training a month before and we ask for this to be completed in a timely manner and if the training is not completed then their licence would be suspended.

Resolved:

1.    That the Licensing Committee note the update on Taxi Licensing.

2.    That DS Morley shares information about Project Vigilant to Tom Ince so that this can be shared with the drivers licenced by Wiltshire Council.