Agenda item

Tom Ince (Principal Compliance Officer) has prepared the attached Taxi Licensing update as at June 2022. 

Peter White (Enforcement Manager) referred to the taxi licencing report for June 2022 circulated with the Agenda and highlighted the following:

• Tom Ince would be returning to work following his operation later this week;

• Driver numbers had stabilised over 2022 with the team seeing a recovery in numbers of new applicants and levels were back to those seen pre pandemic with 15 new licence applications and 111 renewals during June 2022;

• The processing team were working well although there had been some resource challenges due to sickness and the use of the temporary work bank is being investigated to support the team;

• The number of Hackney Carriage drivers fell by 7 compared to the previous month;

• The team continue to proactively enforce the Council’s policies in relation to taxi licensing and penalty points were issued on 6 occasions during June 2022;

The Chairman asked if there was an indication of involvement by Uber in Wiltshire and reported that in Chippenham, they had seen more taxis from outside of the County in the area and asked if Officers were in a dialogue with other Councils reminding them that their taxis cannot work on Wiltshire ranks.  Peter White reported that she would seek an update from his Compliance Officers on those issues.

A Committee member was aware of the lack of taxis available in Chippenham and gave an example of an elderly couple finding it difficult to get a taxi to their flu vaccination appointment in Corsham.  He asked if there were any issues with taxis in the area and if there was a need to encourage more taxi drivers for the area and how we might do that?

The Vice Chair reported that a Wiltshire wide recruitment campaign had been running now for a number of months and they were highlighting the role of a driving being a good career choice with a number of Wiltshire Council contracts available in the hope to draw in more drivers.  She reminded that residents could use their community transport/link scheme to seek assistances in transport for appointments.  Any further ideas on how to help with the improvement would be welcomed – it had been circulated via Area Board and social media etc.

A Committee member suggested that it would be useful to know what the ideal number of drivers/taxis would be to be able to balance the supply and demand. The reporting of specific incidences in areas is useful and the Chairman asked for details to come to the next meeting of the latest figures for drivers.

A Committee member stated that in these difficult times, some now just cannot afford to run a car and with the costs of fuel and insurance etc rising that is likely to add to the demand for taxis, and taxis will want in increase in order for their business to be viable and continue providing the services to the public.

A Committee member stated that whilst Uber do not have direct services in Wiltshire as yet, they do allow other taxis firms to sign up to the Uber service and asked what was Wiltshire doing to encourage this?  Peter White responded that he would need to look into this further with the team to be able to provide a response.

Adrian Hampton (Head of Highway Operations) confirmed that they were aware that there were not enough taxi drivers in Wiltshire and that that was a challenge they were currently trying to work through to improve.

Jason Salter (Head of Service – Passenger Transport) reported that the demand will continue to increase (especially in relation to SEND transport provision) where a rise of over 100% is anticipated for September 2023 with an increase of over 200 needing home to education transportation.  This was an anticipated problem with the lack of drivers and they would be working hard to look at how they would be managing that demand.

Resolved:

That the Committee notes the updated shared on behalf of the Taxi Licensing Team.