Published November 16, 2016 at 14:59
Last night Rossendale Borough Councillors approved the recommended changes to the Council’s Taxi Licensing Policies following recent consultation.
The changes are being brought in by the Council in order to ensure we maintain the highest standards in public safety and to ensure that robust policies are in place providing transparent guidance to applicants, existing licence holders and all other stakeholders.
The Licensing Committee considered the recommendations from the extensive public consultation and approved the changes with some slight amendments as proposed and accepted by Members.
Cllr Steve Hughes, Licensing Committee Chair at Rossendale Borough Council said;
“The Committee and the Council’s focus has always been, and will always be, public safety and this includes the drivers. These recommendations that have been passed are not unusual and feature in many other taxi policies at other authorities.”
We had already made significant changes to our policy with the implementation of our Intended Use Policy and basic skills test. The basic skills test that has been in place since June for new applicants, is on basic skills Maths and English, the equivalent of BKSB Level 1 Functional Skills assessments, we believe this is the minimum standard that drivers should be able to achieve in order to provide a quality, public service and it is comparable to other licensing authorities. Moving forward, following feedback from the trade, we will be looking to introduce a more taxi focused English and maths testing system.
Some of the key new recommendations which will now be brought in are; entry age for licensed vehicles reduced to 5 years, a colour livery will be introduced, standard roof signage to be introduced, mandatory CCTV to be in all licensed vehicles, local knowledge test to be introduced, review of the tariff cards, existing drivers to complete a basic skills test prior to renewal to include the knowledge test. Further information on the consultation and all the recommendations can be found here.
These changes will apply to all licenses and will be implemented in line with the dates given in the body of the Licensing Report.
We appreciate the public’s patience during the trade’s industrial action over this and welcome a return to service.